Bin Laden
May 1, 2011 7:42 PM Subscribe

President Obama to make important announcement regarding Osama Bin Laden imminently
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 (4425 comments total) 106 users marked this as a favorite

Reuters reporting that Bin Laden is dead. We'll soon see.
posted by estuardo at 7:44 PM on May 1, 2011

I can't imagine what else it could be to prompt a Presidential statement like this.
posted by Justinian at 7:46 PM on May 1, 2011

This blue "Beginning shortly" screen is mocking me. The announcement better not be "Osama bin Laden is still an asshole."
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

HuffPo is reporting Donald Trump has been discovered giving sanctuary to Bin Ladedn in his hair.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [34 favorites]

And that his corpse is in the U.S.

Unknown if it's going to be studied by "top men" or placed in the warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [40 favorites]

Is James Brown still dead?
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reuters has tweeted OBL's death. I wonder what he died from.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I can't believe it.
posted by marimeko at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

And it's pre-empting the end of the Celebrity Apprentice. Bad day for Trump!
posted by yellowbinder at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [67 favorites]

Ding dong...
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

.

(just kidding.)
posted by The Hamms Bear at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

Ten years ago I was living about a mile away from Ground Zero.

As God is my witness, I honestly have no idea what to think right now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [23 favorites]

CBS is reporting that Osama Bin Laden is dead, and US officials have his body in custody.
posted by chemoboy at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bin Laden determined to strike America
posted by orthogonality at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
posted by mikelieman at 7:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Dude, I just watched Day After Tomorrow yesterday, so seriously was expecting a lot worse.
posted by geoff. at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Dear politicians - now is the time to quietly admit to all your sex scandals. You've got cover for a few days.
posted by allen.spaulding at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [101 favorites]

FPP about this event to be made, eventually. MeFi is not for breaking news.
posted by Eideteker at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

I figured he'd died years ago.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

The timing couldn't be much more perfect for Obama. It will be very interesting to see if there are any signs of the news having being held back.
posted by stepheno at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

At last the Hydra has had its head chopped off.
posted by sien at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [86 favorites]

It's okay to relax now. We won the War on Terror!
posted by etc. at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011

RobotVoodooPower: I was joking a few minutes ago that the announcement was about aliens. Given all this corpse talk, I'm feeling I wasn't so off-base.
posted by waterunderground at 7:48 PM on May 1, 2011

After ten years? I'll need to see proof.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011

Finally. Nice job Special Forces.
posted by JohntheContrarian at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

I hope they have a long-form death certificate.
posted by unSane at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [204 favorites]

I demand to see the long form death certificate.
posted by HonoriaGlossop at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [23 favorites]

Do they have Bin Laden's long-form birth certificate?
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

*gasp*
posted by elpapacito at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

War's over! You can come home, everybody!
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

He died of boredom.
posted by ColdChef at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [31 favorites]

I figured he'd died years ago.

Nothing we'll learn tonight will rule that out.

(But Emmanuel Goldstein still lives to terrorize us.)
posted by orthogonality at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

CNN is also reporting that he died, and that the US would not have confirmed unless they had the body and dna evidence.
posted by zarq at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011

Osama dead according to Al Jazeera
posted by elpapacito at 7:49 PM on May 1, 2011

The timing couldn't be much more perfect for Obama. It will be very interesting to see if there are any signs of the news having being held back.

10:30pm on a Sunday, for good news like this, suggests that they have GALLOPED to get this story out.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [22 favorites]

Welp, they better fucking be right.
posted by fleacircus at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011

In related news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
posted by schmod at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [48 favorites]

Yub Nub.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Alex Jones is now reporting that Bin Laden has proof that Donald Trump is a Lizard Person. Open your eyes people.
posted by allen.spaulding at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

One hopes this will prove to be an important psychological victory against not only terrorist cells around the world, but against fearmongers here at home. Al-Qaeda's been a shadow of itself for a long time now, but hopefully this will entrench that weakness in the minds of everyone still overly frightened by that band of cowards.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

NBC News is saying it too-saying it is a result of US action. So not anything natural and the US has his body.
posted by supercapitalist at 7:50 PM on May 1, 2011

Also: I'll be damned.
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2011

Wow. I didn't think it would matter, but this actually feels like... closure.

I know we're still going to live in a post-9/11 world, and counter-terrorism will remain a priority (albeit not the biggest one), and this does little to nothing to change that, but wow.

Obama should get on his Airforce outfit and jet onto an aircraft carrier to celebrate with banners and the media and stuff. He earned it.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

And it's pre-empting the end of the Celebrity Apprentice. Bad day for Trump!

I believe this is not a coincidence. For whatever reasons Obama seems to be taking Trump very seriously as an opponent and is hitting very hard and very fast on him. He didn't respond to years of the birth certificate crap until trump (racistly) accused him of having bad grades. He went after Trump with unprecedented vitriol at the correspondents dinner. I think there's a plan here.
posted by serazin at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

FUCK YEAH, DIE YOU FUCK.
posted by clavdivs at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [32 favorites]

I don't get it: why would the president not say the reason for his conference is, if the news is getting out all over the place anyway? Is there any strategy to this, or should we assume some leak or something?

Or that maybe, you know, the reports are wrong.
posted by meese at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2011

I am glad to know that we are finally safe from this menace. Also I eagerly await the rolling stones next album.
posted by I Foody at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2011

For everyone else that's getting annoyed with the total silence on the "beginning shortly" screen, this is my plan.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I never thought I'd see the day. Not sure how to feel about this.
posted by codacorolla at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Massive PR coup for Obama, it probably won't change things on the ground in Afghanistan too much but it will be a big deal for Obama's re-election chances.
posted by vuron at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Unless aliens are on the white house lawn, it could have waited til morning
posted by shothotbot at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

After all this, I sure as hell hope the reports aren't wrong.
posted by supercapitalist at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope that, when this livestream does begin, that it's just Meet the Hollowheads in its entirety.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

I don't own a TV; what are the networks showing right now?
posted by orthogonality at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

supercapitalist: "...a result of US action...."

Good. Rot in hell, motherfucker.
posted by zarq at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Also, this totally ruins my death pool final four. Sharon must be rolling over in his coma.
posted by allen.spaulding at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm sure there's a "Mission Accomplished" joke in here somewhere, but frankly I'm too numb from the horrific effects of the war on terror to actually make one...
posted by schmod at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

This feels kind of bizarre. CNN just seems to keep repeating "Bin Laden is dead" like some sort of mantra.
posted by SNWidget at 7:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Remember folks, don't believe it till you see the long form death certificate.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I believe this is not a coincidence.

Lamest. Conspiracy theory. Evar.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

President Obama to make important announcement regarding military presence in Afghanistan imminently....

I'm waiting.
posted by ennui.bz at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

And I am not looking forward to some fucking circus over a corpse. If anyone really thinks murdering one man will in any way reduce terrorism, well, then the terrorists win.
posted by serazin at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [23 favorites]

I wonder how long they've had the body. Because DNA tests in reality are a whole lot slower in reality than they are on tv. Surprise Sunday night news conference announcing this is the most amazing news cycle ambush i could imagine.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Excellent news.

Now can we pull the fuck out of Afghanistan immediately, please?
posted by EatTheWeek at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

!!!
posted by jjray at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011

orthogonality: "57I don't own a TV; what are the networks showing right now?"

Pontificating pundits, talking about the events of 9/11 and discussing what closure this will give the American people.
posted by zarq at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011

If we have his body this wasn't a drone strike. It means personnel on the ground with weapons.
posted by Justinian at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.
posted by palliser at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

ABC is reporting on it.
posted by Cuke at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011

This is huge for Obama. Especially if they found Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
posted by chemoboy at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011

Who is Usama Bin Landen? Whoever he is, Fox confirms he is dead.
posted by raztaj at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

BBC has it Osama's corpse is in US possession.
posted by elpapacito at 7:53 PM on May 1, 2011

I don't own a TV; what are the networks showing right now?

Totally meaningless shit: stock footage of Bin Laden and the twin towers. They're just killing time until the official presidential announcement.
posted by craichead at 7:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

When I first heard they were announcing tonight, I thought that this had to be it. If it were an imminent danger, no wait. If it was another Number Two, wait till tomorrow morning. Once they said it wasn't about Libya, it had to be this.
posted by SNWidget at 7:54 PM on May 1, 2011

So Obama not "cutting and running" as of now kinda paid off politically, I guess.

Pretty expensive bill of materials, in money and blood, to achieve this, but we as a nation are just collectively too stupid to leave the region without this scalp I guess.
posted by mokuba at 7:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Especially if they found Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is more likely.
posted by Justinian at 7:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I loved MSNBC before the news was confirmed: paraphrase - "We're sorry, we don't know what were reporting on yet... we don't want to mislead anyone..."
posted by JoeXIII007 at 7:54 PM on May 1, 2011

Lamest. Conspiracy theory. Evar.

It's not a conspiracy theory! I think he pre-announced his announcement with the show timing in mind. What is a "conspiracy theory" about that? If there's one thing Obama is good at, it's running for president.
posted by serazin at 7:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hmm, so Obama finds his lost birth certificate, and Osama Bin Laden.

Wolfram Alpha... you did this?
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

ortho: CNN: Revenge likely. Threat level is likely to rise. US Intel community, especially those stationed internationally will have to be sensitive to that.
posted by zarq at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Justice isn't swift.
posted by ColdChef at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also, Celebrity Apprentice has been interrupted!
posted by JoeXIII007 at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I hope that, when this livestream does begin, that it's just Meet the Hollowheads in its entirety.

Reuters confirmed that it will, in fact, be Blood Dolls in its entirety. Sources close to the President speculate that it may contain director's commentary.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Who bets he was in pakistan?
posted by elpapacito at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can't the President ever have a big reveal?
posted by zerobyproxy at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is completely ruining my intimate plans for this part of the evening. From the grave that bastard is terrorizing my sex life!
posted by five fresh fish at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [28 favorites]

If Obama is really savvy, he'll take the opportunity to declare victory and withdraw from Afghanistan.
posted by Grimgrin at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

O-bomb-a Bin Laden?

... too soon?
posted by Debaser626 at 7:55 PM on May 1, 2011

Front page of Fox News: "Usama Bin Landen Dead Fox News Confrims"

hahahahahhaa

ha
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [52 favorites]

Also, Celebrity Apprentice has been interrupted!

Trump has Meatloaf. Obama has Bin Laden.
posted by SNWidget at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

I kind of get the feeling Osama won't have been in Afganistan, and certainly not in Iraq. Why would he hide in a warzone with a major US military presence?

Any war nerds want to say why I might be wrong?
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

meese: "I don't get it: why would the president not say the reason for his conference is, if the news is getting out all over the place anyway? Is there any strategy to this, or should we assume some leak or something?
"

Mysterious Presidential Announcement does a damn good job of building hype and drawing attention on a late Sunday night. The only thing that would have been better is if the news had been broken by his speech itself, rather than pundits shortly before said speech.

I wonder what the potential for martyrdom is. I also wonder if it would have been better to capture him alive. People talk about the benefit of public civilian trials for terrorists, to emphasize the fact that they're criminals rather than holy warriors, but with the way Gitmo has been handled by the Congress, I'm not sure how well that strategy would play out.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Dammit, all of you people need to use SPOILER tags. You've ruined the announcement for me.
posted by Justinian at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

What is this strange liquid coming from my eyes?
posted by MegoSteve at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

So when is this 10:30 ET release actually gonna start?
posted by Deflagro at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011

JoeXIII007: "Also, Celebrity Apprentice has been interrupted!"

The ultimate indignity!
posted by zarq at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wonder what low level aide in either the House or the Senate leaked this and stole all of the thunder...
posted by SNWidget at 7:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Front page of Fox News: "Usama Bin Landen Dead Fox News Confrims"
Wow. I thought you were joking.
posted by Glinn at 7:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder how this influences Canada's election. Will fear removal benefit the NDP?
posted by five fresh fish at 7:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Also, I will personally blow whoever at the CIA or Pentagon is responsible for this, if anyone.

I take personal responsibility. I cannot hide.
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Love how the same jokes are being said over and over again. Read the fucking thread folks.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

I don't know who this guy is that's on CNN right now (the gray-haired dude that's not Wolf Blitzer) but he's giving me the fucking heebie-jeebies.
posted by penduluum at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

So will Obama release the long form death certificate?
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Along with empress, I too lived close to the Trade Center ten years ago, and this brings up a lot of feelings from that day. This morning, in fact, I was at the Staten Island ferry terminal with my bike, and I had to have my bike sniffed by a (presumably bomb-sniffing) dog.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011

Who is Usama Bin Landen? Whoever he is, Fox confirms he is dead.

LOL, no they don't. They "confrim" that Usama Bin Landen is dead.

screenshot
posted by Flunkie at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [28 favorites]

I am impressed at the ability of tv talking heads to improvisationally fill up half an hour (and counting)
posted by rmd1023 at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011

I wonder what low level aide in either the House or the Senate leaked this and stole all of the thunder...

I can only assume it's accurate, but imagine if it was just a rumor that got out of control. That would be bad.
posted by codacorolla at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011

Pakistan is more likely.

I read a (Guardian) article that makes me double that as much as I would have in the last few months. More likely, but Afghanistan is not out of the question.
posted by chemoboy at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

You heard it here first: Obama wins 2012 election...
posted by zvs at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Soooooo, the war on terror is over now, right? We can go back to being the land of the free and the home of the brave and that kind of thing now, ya?
posted by Juffo-Wup at 7:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Huh. Apparently I'm on a phone tree for being notified when Bin Laden is killed.

Now I've turned on the TV (I have a TV?) to watch the announcement. This is a weird night.
posted by MrFTBN at 7:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

4 comments per 20 seconds or so... this makes the Palin thread look manageable.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fox News confrims
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

And here I had all my asteroid monitoring sites queued up for a quick post as soon as the Prez was done.
posted by gimonca at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

The entire DC press corps is hungover tonight too. Hah.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [25 favorites]

I'm sure it was leaked strategically by the White House. It builds up the story, and gets more people watching the actual announcement.

Ask yourself: Are you more or less likely to stay up and wait for the President's announcement now that you know what a Big Fucking Deal this is?
posted by dry white toast at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I don't get it: why would the president not say the reason for his conference is, if the news is getting out all over the place anyway? Is there any strategy to this, or should we assume some leak or something?"

Gives everyone time to call friends and family to gather around the fireside, er, TV, to have a magical shared historical moment we can all remember for years to com, as we all watched Barack Obama gives us healing and closure (cough cough) for the Long National Nightmare that began on 9/11 2001.

It's the anti-November 22nd.
posted by orthogonality at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

Massive PR coup for Obama, it probably won't change things on the ground in Afghanistan too much but it will be a big deal for Obama's re-election chances.

Re-election? That's more than a week now. People can't remember what the president said yesterday.

Soooooo, the war on terror is over now, right? We can go back to being the land of the free and the home of the brave and that kind of thing now, ya?

I can't wait until cocain/heroin/marajuana is dead, and the war on drugs is over

The phrase on NBC: Obama could become a martyr for his followers. We'll see.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow. Just wow. I never thought we'd know when he eventually died. When I saw this thread title, I hoped against hope that we hade him in custody, though I thought even that unlikely.

But this...it's bizarre. I feel like the whole world just shifted on its axis.
posted by misha at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2011

Well, I guess Morgan Spurlock can truly end his film now.
posted by jermspeaks at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

May surprise!
posted by carter at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2011

drinks on me.
posted by clavdivs at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm sure there's a "Mission Accomplished" joke in here somewhere, but frankly I'm too numb from the horrific effects of the war on terror to actually make one...

No joke -- today is the 8th anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" day. Methinks that has a little more to do with getting the news out today than silly theories about Trump's stupid tv show.
posted by inigo2 at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [26 favorites]

CNN is saying that he was taken by US forces in Pakistan.
posted by ColdChef at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011

Congratulations America on narrowly beating natural causes.
posted by I Foody at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [42 favorites]

Here's MY soundtrack while waiting for the live stream...
posted by FatherDagon at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Reuters confirmed that it will, in fact, be Blood Dolls in its entirety.

I love that movie! One of Charles Band's wackiest.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011

Pakistan! I Win!
posted by elpapacito at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

someone wake me up when he holds a press conference to announce the military-industrial complex is dead.
posted by any major dude at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

THIS DOES NOT BUDGE MY CYNICISM ONE IOTA.
posted by fleacircus at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

So...how long before the Republicans successfully use this against Obama?
posted by TrialByMedia at 8:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

USA USA USA

And stop frisking my fucking junk already.
posted by blargerz at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [20 favorites]

I also wonder if it would have been better to capture him alive.

I don't think so. I think it would have been really hard to figure out what to do with him that wouldn't make him into more of a martyr.

CNN is saying that he was taken by US forces in Pakistan.

Huh. How's that going to play in Pakistan?
posted by craichead at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011

Thinking the statement will now be at 11:15, says Wolf Blitzer.
posted by misha at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011

The news was on twitter 20 minutes before TV news made a peep.
posted by sugarfish at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Congratulations America on narrowly beating natural causes.

Snark aside, it is important symbolically even if he would have died in three days if we had done nothing. That's why nazi hunters and such didn't stop pursuing nazis even when they got really, really old.
posted by Justinian at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

This is bad news for Gary Condit.
posted by greasy_skillet at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [27 favorites]

This probably happened because I emailed Obama that Morgan Spurlock was considering running in the GOP primaries which was a baldfaced lie.

You're welcome, America.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

ABC was saying that they had DNA from his sister and that is how they managed a DNA match.
posted by divide_by_cucumber at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2011

I wonder what low level aide in either the House or the Senate leaked this and stole all of the thunder...

This is tangential, but the legislative branch has the least amount of direct involvement in the armed forces and intelligence communities. That's executive branch stuff. If it was leaked, it came from the DoD, CIA, or EOP (ie. White House).

The Senators are hearing about this at the same time as we are. There is no cabal.
posted by schmod at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obama is at his desk furiously writing, waving his hand impatiently at Valerie Jarrett, going "Alright, alright, I'm almost done, jeez, keep your panties on."
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

The fact that he was picked in Pakistan gives an incredible excuse to invade and get all the nukes in the area under control. My bet: the next is not Iran.
posted by elpapacito at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama's announcement is delayed a little bit while he waits for the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner comes out of his inkjet printer.
posted by MegoSteve at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [42 favorites]

Wikipedia: 2003 Mission Accomplished Speech (yes, it was May 1, 2003).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

CBS is saying that most likely he was killed in Pakistan and his body returned to Afghanistan. They are waiting on the White House to confirm.
posted by chemoboy at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011

Maybe the actually announcement is that they're giving up on finding him, and now that the opposite has been leaked, they're trying to figure out what to say.

My guess is we're all getting free copies of Decision Points.
posted by !Jim at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011

CNN is saying that he was taken by US forces in Pakistan.

How fucking awesome must it have been to be the Special Forces guys on that op?

I sort of always hoped it would be a female bomber pilot from the midwest who did him in.
posted by shothotbot at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Can we go back to pre-911 airport security now?
posted by wenat at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Unfortunately, that just means a few dozen al-Qaeda #2s jockeying for position.

j/k, it's great.

!
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011

Wow.
Please keep posting updates for those of us without tv or reliable stream of whitehouse.gov.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

HuffPo is reporting Donald Trump has been discovered giving sanctuary to Bin Ladedn in his hair.
Love how the same jokes are being said over and over again. Read the fucking thread folks.

TRUMPS HAIR LAYS BARE TERROR LAIR.

There.
posted by PapaLobo at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [55 favorites]

If Bin Laden did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

FPP about this event to be made, eventually. MeFi is not for breaking news.

Normal breaking news? No.

OMG HOLY SHIT world-impacting breaking news? Hell yes.
posted by spinifex23 at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [36 favorites]

Obama Trumps Osama!
posted by ericb at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [18 favorites]

I hear that twenty lucky Americans - twenty people from all walks of life - will be specially selected to beat his corpse with a stick. The event will be recorded and played on a closed loop in a special shrine to be built at Ground Zero. And finally, finally the USA will achieve closure.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [29 favorites]

Score one for the drone drivers...
posted by mikelieman at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011

If it was another Number Two, wait till tomorrow morning.

Oh, it's a number two, alright.
posted by indubitable at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, wow. Okay.
posted by rtha at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bin Laden killed outside Islamabad in mansion with other family members, by a U.S. "asset".
posted by misha at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011

As strange as it is that they would announce a 10:30 PM Sunday press conference, it's even stranger that they would be over half an hour late for it, and counting. I wonder what's up?
posted by Flunkie at 8:06 PM on May 1, 2011

Per CNN: "In a mansion outside Islamabad. Other family members also killed."
posted by inigo2 at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011

ABC through Al Jazera: intelligence sources, Osama killed last week in a drone attack
posted by elpapacito at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011

hoped against hope that we hade him in custody, though I thought even that unlikely.

Oh, he'd dead all right. If we had taken him alive, we would never have heard about it--he'd be in some secret prison being attended by this nation's best "interrogators" until such time as his corpse found its way into an incinerator.
posted by Chrischris at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

That really amazes me, that he actually did manage to stay alive and in hiding for all these years.
Despite the dodgy audio tapes he was sending out from time to time, I had come to believe the CW that he had died, in a bombing or from kidney failure many years ago and was just being kept 'alive' by both sides as either a bogeyman or a figurehead.
Therefore to me this is a bit like Obama coming out and saying: yeah, we've got some dead aliens in a freezer in New Mexico.
posted by Flashman at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [29 favorites]

Holy shit, so many forums are crashing right now, and facebook has slowed to a crawl. For me, at any rate.
posted by codacorolla at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

"So...how long before the Republicans successfully use this against Obama?"

Clearly you already have
posted by Blasdelb at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011

'Nuclear hellstorm' if bin Laden is caught or killed: Al-Qaida
April 25, 2011 13:58 IST

Al-Qaida terrorists have threatened to unleash a "nuclear hellstorm" on the West if their leader and world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden is nabbed.

A senior Al-Qaida commander has claimed that the terror group has stashed away a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if bin Laden is ever caught or assassinated, according to new top secret files made public by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

posted by Rhaomi at 8:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Probably more symbolic than anything, and I wish this had happened years ago and without the deaths of so many people. That said, I want Obama to hit the top of the door way with his hand on the way into the East Room.

Awaiting inevitable right-wing spin on this. Any takers on what that'll look like?
posted by HostBryan at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just finished watching Restrepo. Man, have we been there a long time. Even the filmmaker's been killed by now (in Libya).
posted by fungible at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

ABC's running film clips of Bin Laden next to the talking heads is weird, and kind of creepy. I feel like "Don't You (Forget About Me)" should be playing softly in the background.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

The timing of this is eerie to me, for silly personal reasons. My best friend's birthday is 9/11. She is RIGHT NOW giving birth. On the day that Osama is found dead. I'm sure she's having to hear about it as I can't imagine nurses NOT turning on the news. Poor girl can't catch a break. Bin Laden is stalking here, even from the grave.
posted by sonika at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

I sort of always hoped it would be a female bomber pilot from the midwest who did him in.

I always sort of hoped it would be the CIA handlers who first trained, armed, and activated bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

You know, symmetrical blowback.
posted by orthogonality at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [20 favorites]

This is fantastic news. Well done to everyone involved in finally nailing this utterly evil individual.
posted by joannemullen at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

CBS is reporting Osama Bin Laden's body will be "disposed of" so there will not be any sort of grave or shrine that anyone can collect around.
posted by chemoboy at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011

Obama is at his desk furiously writing, waving his hand impatiently at Valerie Jarrett, going "Alright, alright, I'm almost done, jeez, keep your panties on."

Although I assume that they have pre-written speeches for this sort of thing, I'm beginning to wonder if this event was far-fetched enough that they actually didn't have one prepared.
posted by schmod at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Like when Sen. McCain "told" everone during his campaign "I know how to get Osama Bin Laden"... only not a scare mongering misleading statement.

Who's got odds on the President walking out with a fancy silver platter, and non-chalantly tossing it to the front row of the press pool.

Ps. When Bush said "mission accomplished", it was using a different meaning of accomplished, like, here, these are the meanings, spoiler; it was not the first one, more like "mission: we have lots of experience with this now".

1.completed; done; effected: an accomplished fact.
2.highly skilled; expert: an accomplished pianist.
3.having all the social graces, manners, and other attainments of polite society.
Just thought I should clear that up after nearly a half decade of jokes about it...
posted by infinite intimation at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is bad news for Gary Condit.

and sharks
posted by any major dude at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hrmm, outside Islamabad. Couldn't possibly be the ISI finally playing ball.
posted by vuron at 8:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Crowd at the Phillies-Mets games chating "U-S-A". Crowd shots show everybody looking at their phones.
posted by dry white toast at 8:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fuck yeah.
posted by defenestration at 8:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Re Fox News:

Usama Bin Laden is the name on the FBI wanted poster.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:09 PM on May 1, 2011

I saw the headline and immediately wondered what needed to be covered up today. I'm kind of sad that I've become so cynical.
posted by honeydew at 8:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Can we have our freedoms back, now?!
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 8:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

*smacks head* A mansion outside the Pakistani capital, of course! We've been looking in all those caves in vain! Gah!
posted by Rhaomi at 8:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Soooooo, the war on terror is over now, right?
I think it's difficult to speculate about consequences, one thing I was thinking was that the terror groups will loose a lot of Bin Laden funding.
This might just be the excuse I needed to finish off this weekend's booze leftovers!
Hard to believe that fucker's been running around for 10 years now.
posted by PHINC at 8:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, you have no idea how much it pleases me that the pundits are referring to Bush's "mission accomplished" speech as "Infamous."

A month after 9/11, Bush stood at Ground Zero and said that he was not going to rest until we got Bin Laden. Then he fucked off to Iraq -- totally the wrong place -- and got us all caught up in that instead, and trashed the economy in the process. And then declared "Mission Accomplished", leaving me and several million other New Yorkers to scream at our TVs "WRONG FUCKING MISSION, asshole."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [113 favorites]

Holy shit, so many forums are crashing right now, and facebook has slowed to a crawl. For me, at any rate.

mathowie sez: "Who wishes we had inline images now? Yeah, that's what I thought."

Also: kudos, again, to pb for the new comments feature.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Would it be uncouth of me to dance around my living room singing the Ewok song from the end of Return of the Jedi?
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

Puffin Party is going nuts right now.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I don't have cable and I don't have an antenna, so since the conversion, the only channels I get are two local Fox affiliates. One is still playing Family Guy and the other has switched over to Fox News. So, now I'm watching Geraldo shout at me. Actually now, I'm watching him interview some jerk about how this won't end Islamo-fascism. FML. This is why I never, never turn on the TV anymore.
posted by marsha56 at 8:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

The thought just occured to me because of mikelieman's post that the soldier who pulled the trigger was sitting at a computer monitor at Cent Com not 10 miles from where I'm sitting.
posted by photoslob at 8:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know, as soon I as saw this on the news, I came straight to MeFi. Because when it is breaking news of this magnitude, nobody does it better.
posted by never used baby shoes at 8:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [82 favorites]

God have mercy on any of the people who are likely to be distressed by this news and react violently. Still their hearts and let this most recent act of justice be the end of all the violence.
posted by jefficator at 8:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [16 favorites]

clavdivs : FUCK YEAH, DIE YOU FUCK.

Seriously ?
Will Osama's death bring health care to 40 million Americans?

Will it bring a single job to an of the 50+million unemployed/under-employed Americans?

Will it bring a single criminal charge to any of the bankers making unheard of bonuses after holding the American financial system hostage to fraud and mismanagement?

Will it bring a single American soldier home or stop the tens of thousands of American men and women who get killed or maimed in our mid-East wars?

I'm glad you are so thrilled about this news but what does it change for the poor, the unemployed, the hungry and the thousands about to be maimed and killed this year in war.

Less bread.
More Circuses.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 8:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [93 favorites]

Can we disband the DHS and roll parts of it back into the CIA/FBI now?
posted by SirOmega at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Re Fox News:

Usama Bin Laden is the name on the FBI wanted poster.

Yes, not Usama Bin Landen. And the FBI won't "confrim" his death.
posted by inigo2 at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Whoa, Islamabad! And the Pakistani intelligence didn't know? Oh so curious!
posted by elpapacito at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

P.S. h/t The Onion
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011

CBS is reporting Osama Bin Laden's body will be "disposed of" so there will not be any sort of grave or shrine that anyone can collect around.

That's ... is that weird to anybody else? Not that I think he deserves a marker or anything, but it still seems unusual. Is there precedent for that? This whole thing is basically unprecedented, though, I guess.
posted by penduluum at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Joe in Australia: "167I hear that twenty lucky Americans - twenty people from all walks of life - will be specially selected to beat his corpse with a stick. The event will be recorded and played on a closed loop in a special shrine to be built at Ground Zero. And finally, finally the USA will achieve closure."

I'd like to fucking volunteer.
posted by zarq at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Would it be uncouth of me to dance around my living room singing the Ewok song from the end of Return of the Jedi?

Yes.
posted by mikelieman at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011

on CNN, Blitzer: "Vice President Joe Biden has called number two republican Eric Cantor to tell him Bin Laden is dead."

Biden adds, "Eat it, dicks."
posted by jermsplan at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [50 favorites]

Usama Bin Laden is the name on the FBI wanted poster.

Thank you for confriming that Usama Bin Landen is not.
posted by Flunkie at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Usama Bin Laden is the name on the FBI wanted poster.

And Usama Bin Landen is the terrorist cousin of the hot guy in every 80s teen flick ever.
posted by phunniemee at 8:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm glad you are so thrilled about this news but what does it change for the poor, the unemployed, the hungry and the thousands about to be maimed and killed this year in war.

Sure, the mastermind is dead. The war is over, victory. We resume our much needed marshall plan.
posted by elpapacito at 8:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Will it bring a single American soldier home

Quite possibly one or two, yeah.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Every site I visit has slowed to a crawl. This is big.
posted by swift at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is all very surreal. Like someone else said, we've been chasing after bin Laden by entire my entire adult life (more than, really). Somewhere along the line I became convinced he was, I don't know, fictitious.
posted by hoyland at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

There are people setting off fireworks in my neighborhood!
posted by phunniemee at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

: )
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow. I hope this brings closure the people effected by 9/11, its been to long and they deserve closure. Also a huge moral boost for the troops in Afghanistan, IK hope they can come home soon.
posted by lilkeith07 at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

You know, as soon I as saw this on the news, I came straight to MeFi. Because when it is breaking news of this magnitude, nobody does it better.

Agreed. I happened to be on mefi anyway, what luck.
posted by chemoboy at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was dicking around on the Internet on September 11. Maybe I should've gotten up in the meantime.
posted by hat at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

He's not dead, he's resting. Pinning for the fjords.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Geraldo's live commentary is with the sheen threshold of bombast.
posted by Fupped Duck at 8:15 PM on May 1, 2011

What a piece of non-news. The guy wasn't a supervillain. He was just a guy, and there are plenty more ready to take his place. I mean, I'm not sorry he's gone, but let's be realistic; this doesn't change anything, certainly not for the better. Military action against terrorism is like pouring gas on your burning house. Not working yet? WE NEED SOME MORE GASOLINE IN HERE!
posted by Salvor Hardin at 8:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [28 favorites]

Not that I think he deserves a marker or anything, but it still seems unusual. Is there precedent for that?

If I recall correctly, Eichmann's remains were scattered in international waters in the Mediterranean for similar reasons.
posted by gimonca at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yeah no joke, the internet seems to be slowing to a crawl, maybe it's a good thing they are announcing this tonight.

Worker productivity tomorrow will be for shit though
posted by vuron at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was dicking around on the Internet on September 11.

Me too. Up earlier than usual, sitting in this same room, dicking around on the internet. Here, specifically, though I was just lurking at the time. Feels kind of good to be doing the same thing tonight.
posted by penduluum at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011

[Somewhere in the mists of the distant future...]

Obama: "I am proud to announce that the infamous terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has finally been killed by American forces in Pakistan."

Robotic States of Techno-America: OLD NEWS, BARACK. *departs on a fusion jetpack*
posted by Rhaomi at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Al-Qaida terrorists have threatened to unleash a "nuclear hellstorm" on the West if their leader and world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden is nabbed.

I hadn't seen that story a week ago, but I did see one more recently about a group of AlQueda terrorists being found with a cache of explosives. I suspect this announcement was delayed until we were more sure we had done everything possible to prevent retaliatory attacks.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011

I'm really not sure what to think right now. On the one hand, if anyone deserves it he does. But I also sort of wish he'd been captured alive and put on trial. But seeing as he'd probably be kept at Gitmo until then, I can't imagine that would go well. Maybe it's best that everything's just over with.
posted by fishmasta at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

photoslob: The thought just occured to me because of mikelieman's post that the soldier who pulled the trigger was sitting at a computer monitor at Cent Com not 10 miles from where I'm sitting.

Oh, that's creepy. Practically in my back yard, those guys.
posted by cmyk at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011

Somewhere along the line I became convinced he was, I don't know, fictitious.

....Suddenly I'm picturing Osama Bin Laden as General Woundwort.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

this is an emotional moment for the U.S. It is scary though to think of what this will stir for us in pakistan etc.
posted by cerebral at 8:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Odds: Obama says Pakistan intelligence has collaborated ...20% ..../ Obama says we found Osama in Pakistan ... and is mad about that 20% / Obama says we found Osama and killed him, end of story 60%
posted by elpapacito at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

That's ... is that weird to anybody else? Not that I think he deserves a marker or anything, but it still seems unusual. Is there precedent for that? This whole thing is basically unprecedented, though, I guess.

During the Roman Republic (and after), there were many times where bodies of famous (and dangerous) leaders were disappeared, so that there'd be no one place for supporters to gather.

Same thing happened to Hitler's body in the Soviet's hands, if I remember.
posted by SNWidget at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I always sort of hoped it would be the CIA handlers who first trained, armed, and activated bin Laden to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

your wrong, par for the course these days.
posted by clavdivs at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm on a Greyhound home to NYC as I learn this. What a night to be going back to New York! Time to raise a glass.
posted by oneironaut at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Geraldo is approaching the dangerous sheen threshold of extreme bombast
posted by Fupped Duck at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011

He didn't respond to years of the birth certificate crap until trump (racistly) accused him of having bad grades.

I admit this is a blatant derail, but why is it racist to accuse a presidential candidate of having bad grades? I've seen similar accusations made against George W. Bush and Al Gore and John Kerry.
posted by John Cohen at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Doh. One day I'll learn to read good.

Shame on me for giving Fox the benefit of the doubt.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011

There are people setting off fireworks in my neighborhood!

And playing Jingo-bells?
posted by orthogonality at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

CNN source says OBL killed by "human operation, not a drone".
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011

I saw the towers fall on the streets of NYC. Gotta say, I'm weirdly happy that OBL's death is being met with dismissive snark on Twitter. You're no great warrior, OBL, you're just more yuk fodder for Patton Oswalt.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Afghanistan and Pakistan are in for a bloody few days.
posted by knapah at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011

There are people setting off fireworks in my neighborhood!

We've got fireworks too. But that just happens sometimes.
posted by hoyland at 8:17 PM on May 1, 2011

"In a mansion outside Islamabad. Other family members also killed."

If it turns out that the other family members he was meeting with were the same ones Bush shipped out immediately after 9/11 during the flight lockdown...
posted by FatherDagon at 8:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

Republicans: "Democrats weak on terrorism."

Other Americans: "Burn. Fuck You, Republicans."
posted by ericb at 8:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

I also shouted it out on the bus. The only person who was really excited called back "We've known that since 2001!" out of the darkness.
posted by oneironaut at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Who is Usama Bin Landen?

He played the father on Little Jihad On The Prairie, didn't he?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [25 favorites]

Dear Mr. President,

Please make this announcement already so that I can stop staring at not one but two blue screens on the Internets. I would like to go to sleep.

Sincerely,
Dr. Wu

P.S. I voted for you! Do me a solid.
posted by Dr. Wu at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Osama Bin Landen played the terrorist on "Little on the Prairie."
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

You know, it's been a shit week for me and a few other people I know, actually, most of the people I know. I think this, this may be the turning point.
posted by hellojed at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Just a flood of emotions right now, but all I can think of at the moment is my childhood friend Christian Regenhard.

.
posted by deadmessenger at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

I hope this brings closure the people effected by 9/11, its been to long and they deserve closure.

Actually, speaking as one of those people, I still need two other things to get closure:

a) Congress needs to stop dicking around with the health care for the first responders who were there, and
b) I'd personally love the rest of the country to NOT TALK ABOUT IT rather than trying to urge me to "never forget," because trying TO forget is the only thing that has kept me fucking SANE for the past ten years.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [27 favorites]

It doesn't matter if it was Osama or not. What matters now is what this will mean to the American people, and what rhetorical plays that are now unavailable to the Republicans. This is a helluva card to play, and it breaks open the Republican defensive line. It isn't clear what political plays are now possible for the administration, but they aren't the ones available to them yesterday.
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011

admit this is a blatant derail, but why is it racist to accuse a presidential candidate of having bad grades? I've seen similar accusations made against George W. Bush and Al Gore and John Kerry.

Trump was saying his pal's kids couldn't get into Harvard, but Obama did. The implication was affirmative action, and not the blue-blood kind.
posted by mokuba at 8:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wow, there really are very few people whose death would cause me to smile broadly and say "Alright!"

I hope that Obama seizes on this moment as an opportunity to end the fucking wars already.

I have a hard time celebrating the death of any human being. But I hope that Osama can use this, somehow, as a way to bring an end to the multiple wars (more than two!) the US is involved in in the Middle East.
posted by chemoboy at 8:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

CNN showing tourists standing outside the white house singing the star spangled banner.
posted by zarq at 8:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's ... is that weird to anybody else? Not that I think he deserves a marker or anything, but it still seems unusual. Is there precedent for that?

reference. Ancient Eygpt
posted by clavdivs at 8:20 PM on May 1, 2011

wow, really? take the birther / grader / whatever crap elsewhere please.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:20 PM on May 1, 2011

During the Roman Republic (and after), there were many times where bodies of famous (and dangerous) leaders were disappeared, so that there'd be no one place for supporters to gather.

Jesus!

I mean, Jesus, that's hardcore!
posted by orthogonality at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [29 favorites]

Jubilant crowds singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the White House gates. An echo of election night 2008.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011

...and G-d Bless America.
posted by zarq at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011

GODDAMNITT MAKE THE ANNOUNCEMENT BEFORE TWITTER POSTS ANYMORE SPOILERS.
posted by EatTheWeek at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Random people currently singing The Star Spangled Banner on the street outside of the White House right now. Damn, you guys ought to get an anthem that's a bit easier to sing.
posted by Flashman at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

MeFi server don't fail me now. I want analysis of this event.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011

To head off (harharharhar) any more calls for 'justice', shooting the man dead isn't justice. It's vengeance. Vengeance many people in here want.

Justice would be had after a long and very public trial in NYC.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

Bin Laden is dead, and he's taking the Internet with him.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

I suspect that the delay is because bin Laden keeps coming back to life Michael Meyers-style and Obama keeps having to re-kill him.
posted by brundlefly at 8:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [21 favorites]

a real shithead that sparked off a decade of hell is no longer alive in his mansion

by all accounts George W Bush is alive and well tonight and probably pissed off that the Apprentice has been pre-empted.
posted by any major dude at 8:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [74 favorites]

In a moment of cosmic coincidence, on this very same day, 1945, the world heard of the death of Hitler.
posted by Muddler at 8:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [40 favorites]

FFS. In eight minutes I turn it off and get to important things.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Somewhere in Pakistan a mid level Al Qaeda operative deletes his memo tilted: On Moving From A Cave To A Mansion: More Secure Plus Date Trees!
posted by shothotbot at 8:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

That really amazes me, that he actually did manage to stay alive and in hiding for all these years.

To be fair, he's been in "hiding," not actual hiding, I'd imagine.
posted by rtha at 8:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Makes me wish I still lived in NoVa - I'd definitely drive into the city for this.
posted by SNWidget at 8:23 PM on May 1, 2011

I hope that Obama seizes on this moment as an opportunity to end the fucking wars already.

That won't every happen.
These wars are not about Osama.
They are not about 9-11.
They are not about protecting us from terrorism.

They are about transferring wealth from you and I to the top 1 % (or less). They are about making tons of money for the military-industrial complex. They are about expending war machinery so that more war machinery needs to be produced.

And if five or ten thousand young American men and woman need to be maimed or killed each year, and if 50 million have to go without health care or a job - so be it.

Osama is a amateur when compared to the atrocities to Americans that are being committed by the Corporate-Fascists in America each and every day.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 8:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [70 favorites]

I know we're all excited but this is kind of why MeFi isn't for breaking news...
posted by polyhedron at 8:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Trump was saying his pal's kids couldn't get into Harvard, but Obama did. The implication was affirmative action, and not the blue-blood kind.

How is that racist?
posted by John Cohen at 8:23 PM on May 1, 2011

Argh, the "please wait" message for the president's speech on the .gov website gives new meaning to "blue screen of death."
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Almost ten years now since I was stabbing the F5 button on a keyboard at work waiting for updates from MeFites around the world after the attacks on 9/11.

And I'm doing it again now.
posted by eyeballkid at 8:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

During the Roman Republic (and after), there were many times where bodies of famous (and dangerous) leaders were disappeared, so that there'd be no one place for supporters to gather.

This is why Antony had Caesers funeral in the forumn, the spot still remains today.
posted by clavdivs at 8:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is probably one of the rare nights when Bill Keller actually gets to yell "Stop the presses."
posted by gsteff at 8:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Alternatively, http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:24 PM on May 1, 2011

CBS is reporting that Joe Biden has confirmed that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
posted by chemoboy at 8:24 PM on May 1, 2011

Obama in a black cowboy hat.

That is all.
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

Yeah, I mean, I guess I was talking about precedent after the period in history where we were putting people's heads on pikes as a warning to the others. I like to think we've come some distance from then. But the Hitler & Eichmann things make a lot of sense, and I appreciate people answering.
posted by penduluum at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mount his head on a pike on the South Lawn.
posted by Scoo at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Conservative Facebook friends already explicitly saying "don't give credit to Obama, give credit to the troops".
posted by Flunkie at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2011

Geez, are they preparing the corpse for display in the White House briefing room? What the heck is the delay?
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2011

Vengeance many people in here want.

Nuremberg was just a fancy show of vengeance, too. Same thing with the Tokyo trials.

I for one didn't care if he was alive or dead, he's not some Bondian villian actually coordinating shit with his otherwise idea-less minions -- but to the extent this apparent event gives us the capability to get our actions back on track to sanity, then great.
posted by mokuba at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

uh oh, they pulled the "10:30" start time and put up "beginning shortly"
posted by shothotbot at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011

Justice would be had after a long and very public trial in NYC.

There was a very public trial in NYC for the 'mastermind' of the first WTC bombing that ended right before the 9/11 attacks. Justice is sometimes so far out of reach you have to settle for Vengeance.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

by all accounts George W Bush is alive and well tonight and probably pissed off that the Apprentice has been pre-empted.

Here George, have another pretzel.
posted by bonehead at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

PIKE!
posted by clavdivs at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is probably one of the rare nights when Bill Keller actually gets to yell "Stop the presses."

"Sokay. They were already stopped!"
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

penduluum: "CBS is reporting Osama Bin Laden's body will be "disposed of" so there will not be any sort of grave or shrine that anyone can collect around.

That's ... is that weird to anybody else? Not that I think he deserves a marker or anything, but it still seems unusual. Is there precedent for that? This whole thing is basically unprecedented, though, I guess."

The remains of Adolf Hitler were buried in an unmarked grave and eventually cremated and scattered in a river, in part to prevent the grave becoming a site of pilgrimage to neo-Nazis.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dude, Poet Lariat, I think Mefi is about as left wing a site as you can find but you might save the axe grinding for a different thread. I don't think this one is fertile ground for converts.
posted by vuron at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [28 favorites]

Please make this announcement already so that I can stop staring at not one but two blue screens on the Internets. I would like to go to sleep.

SRSLY. I have an infant who is like a time bomb who is going to wake up to nurse ANY SECOND now. The longer you prolong this, the more likely I will have to watch the President's address with a small man attached to my boob. Which is a little weird. Even for me.
posted by sonika at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Call me when it's confirmed. This speculation is killing me.
posted by crossoverman at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2011

MeFi isn't for breaking news...

IF YOU TAKE A GOOD LOOK IN THE DISTANCE, YOU CAN USE YOUR SEXTANT TO CALCULATE HOW LONG AGO THAT SHIP SAILED AWAY
posted by secret about box at 8:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [115 favorites]

Reuters obit
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:27 PM on May 1, 2011

Congratulations to Meta for handling this thread so smoothly.
posted by elpapacito at 8:27 PM on May 1, 2011

Maybe the delay is due to Obama killing the Bushes, so he can say that this whole thing is finally truly over.
posted by "Elbows" O'Donoghue at 8:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

In a moment of cosmic coincidence, on this very same day, 1945, the world heard of the death of Hitler.

wow.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:28 PM on May 1, 2011

two minutes, sez NBC
posted by tommyD at 8:28 PM on May 1, 2011

They pulled the 10:30 start time because start times don't look good when they're in the past.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:28 PM on May 1, 2011

John Cohen, there is (as far as I know) no evidence that Obama had bad grades, and the accusation came out immediately in the wake of the previous baseless accusation being thoroughly whomped (and explicitly so - Trump even said something like "OK, maybe he was born in America, but why hasn't he released his school records"), and it's a dog whistle for affirmative action haters. That is, it's a baseless accusation that's designed to appeal to people who think that black people are unfairly advantaged in American society. That's how it's racist. Can we now put this threadjack to rest, please? Thanks.
posted by Flunkie at 8:28 PM on May 1, 2011 [18 favorites]

inigo2: "I'm sure there's a "Mission Accomplished" joke in here somewhere, but frankly I'm too numb from the horrific effects of the war on terror to actually make one...

No joke -- today is the 8th anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" day. Methinks that has a little more to do with getting the news out today than silly theories about Trump's stupid tv show"

Or, ya know... May Day. SUCK IT COMMIES!
posted by symbioid at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Most amusing metafilter thread in ever keep going great job! Bin Landen is confrimed!
posted by tehloki at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm going to be super dooper unpopular for saying this, but: Who cares?

Honestly, the US govt, hell Henry Kissinger has been directly responsible for killing more innocent people than Osama Bin Laden could have even dreamt of. There are no military actions, or protests, or celebrations about that.

Bin Laden is not unique in any way, not for hating the US, for his medieval conservativism, for killing thousands of innocents, as a figure-head fundamentalist propaganda, nothing.

He is only unique in that he was used by Americans (and my country, sadly) as an excuse to continue the military spending of the Cold War, and unleash a horrifying conflict that as killed milions of people, destroyed nations, handcuffed developed economies and - yes - ultimately resulted in far more innocent American deaths than that September so many years ago now.

The ultimate joke is that this great American bete noir was created by the very country purporting to hate him.

I can't get excited about this, it does a grave disservice, I feel to all the people still being killed by our actions in the middle east, by the other terrorist groups we've supported over the years, by the "secular" regimes we prop up and support in Bahrain, Syra, Saudi Arabia and - until very very recently - Libya.

I'm saving my emotions for the living; we can do something about them. A deluded old man in a cave is killed by the largest, most powerful military ever created on Earth, nearly ten years after he was made a target. Good god, sound the trumpets, beat the drums!

Killing an idea is a lot harder, and Osama Bin Laden's greatest legacy is not the ideas he created and sustained in the Muslim world, it's the horrifying, banal, senseless, immoral, illegal and terrible ideas he unleashed in the West, in us. He may be dead, but those ideas are still very much alive, so I cannot celebrate.
posted by smoke at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [211 favorites]

The longer you prolong this, the more likely I will have to watch the President's address with a small man attached to my boob. Which is a little weird. Even for me.

I am sure there is an audience for just this.

Sorry, I think I've been drinking my beer too fast.
posted by chemoboy at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011

Is this the latest Presidential press conference in history? I know that this is the biggest Presidential news in my life.
posted by lilkeith07 at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011

Hey Sir Elton! I have an awesome "Candle In The Wind" idea for you!
posted by sourwookie at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

Its surreal to know historic words will soon be spoken. Words we'll remember and that will be repeated and recorded. Maybe this provides some moment of justice for anyone who was still unable to recover from what Bin Laden orchestrated.
posted by cashman at 8:29 PM on May 1, 2011

Delaying the announcement again... geez, I have to go to bed...come on, come tell us the news already dammit.
posted by supercapitalist at 8:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

ABC has it that Osama was DNA identified
posted by elpapacito at 8:30 PM on May 1, 2011

~~Hijackers~~ Bin Laden Surprised To Find Self In Hell

An updated headline from the Onion's exemplary, Pulitzer-nominated post-9/11 issue.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:30 PM on May 1, 2011

Wow Metafilter is loading so slowly.

So, big thread, I'm guessing the Pakistanis finally got tired of weddings being blown up by flying robots and figured they needed to turn someone in. It's a huge symbolic victory and pretty conveniently timed - I almost feel like it's like the 9/11 memorial in NYC. Nothing nothing nothing ans then once it came down to the ten year deadline- bam- work gets done.

It will be AMAZING to watch Free Republic try to turn this into a victory for Bush, when Bush totally ignored this cause they needed a pretense to invade Iraq cause well, pipelines.

I honestly don't think Al Queda exists anymore, or has, for years. Bin Laden was the founder but hasn't been the head or even invovled for a long time. It's Iran and such, the huge power vacuum in Iraq and a big run for some nice, wholesome Shia on Shitte violence. In terms of fighting narratives, stories, symbols, yeah it's big. But the fighting hasn't been about Bin Laden for a decade and more. If nothing else, it means another four years of the administration.

I guess I feel good?
posted by The Whelk at 8:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

He should never have picked up that iPhone...
posted by bdragon at 8:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Also: I'm in a bar, with the news on, and I've decided to check this thread on my phone obsessively instead. I trust y'all.
posted by honeydew at 8:30 PM on May 1, 2011

"You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
posted by briank at 8:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Twitter is GREAT right now. esp. ElonJames.

This is so surreal...I never thought this would really happen.
posted by nile_red at 8:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Am I allowed to bring my own soup on planes now?
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:31 PM on May 1, 2011

From the Internet- It's worth remembering that Bin Laden's plan was to ignite a pan-Middle East civil war which would unite all Muslim nations w/him as leader.

Which ..did not happen.
posted by The Whelk at 8:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

"Its surreal to know historic words will soon be spoken."

I hope I have a tape in the Betamax machine.
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 8:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Judging by the size of the crowd outside the WH, President Obama probably wont get much sleep either. So don't feel alone east coasters and Western Europeans.
posted by SirOmega at 8:32 PM on May 1, 2011

Speculation is that announcement is being delayed so that they can get the wording right. They want to "calibrate" it so that it resounds with American and international audiences. Including unfriendly folks overseas.
posted by azpenguin at 8:33 PM on May 1, 2011

My first instinct is to wish that he rots in hell until the end of all things, but I don't want to sully my karma. So I'm going to quit thinking about him and hope that this brings some people some peace and closure, if such a thing is possible.
posted by puddinghead at 8:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The whole Internet seems sluggish.
posted by Miko at 8:33 PM on May 1, 2011

podium!
posted by leotrotsky at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011

PICTURES UP!
posted by shothotbot at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011

At last! A lectern.
posted by unliteral at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Who cares?

Lots of people care, obviously. If you meant, "How does this really matter?", well one big reason it matters is because lots of people care. Symbols and stuff matter to people and affect the world. Maybe it shouldn't so much and it doesn't make sense all the time, but that's how it is.
posted by fleacircus at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

The Rock Knew Bin Laden Was Dead Before Anyone Else
posted by brundlefly at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

"The September 11 thread remains a seminal part of MeFi history. It was just as breaking-news as this. And if there is never another breaking news thread on MeFi then this will, I think, have been an appropriate bookend."

Here's the thing about that. Aside from the fact that it was ages ago in MeFi time (back when it was a lawless place and the IMG tag roamed the wilderness), that was a very immediate situation. People were dying, some were lost, communication was interrupted (I was down to one TV channel and no cell phone service). There's no such urgency here, nor the community agency. No one in Topeka is worried about their loved ones surviving this announcement (I hope).

The fact is, this isn't really big news. As many have already stated, Bin Laden wasn't really long for this world anyway. It's been a decade since 9/11, and there's been very little from him other than the occasional video tape. There hasn't been another attack, attempted or otherwise, (aside from the schemes the gov't has stirred up to entrap a few folks). And even then, Bin Laden's little more than a figurehead. This does nothing to reduce anti-American sentiment. This does nothing to improve the living conditions that give birth to terrorists (or freedom fighters, depending on whether we're currently funding them or not). As sien said, it's just one head off the hydra.

But hey, don't let me stop you all from carrying on, cheering the death of a fellow human being (no matter how many deaths he's responsible for; it's one more death, not one fewer—no one's resurrected). Continue making jokes about finally being able to carry shampoo on planes, long form death certificates, and awful Fox coverage. It's what we do; we're humans. It's how we react to stressful and difficult situations. But there's a reason we don't usually try to do this stuff here, on MeFi. Privately, it's okay to react however you want. But it's best to give yourself that time to react, then come back, join the dialogue when you're more composed, more coherent, and more dignified. I mean, do you really want this to be the record of the moment? Do you really want to come back to this thread in some distant future and say, "Wow, I was really petty!" or "Wow, I was really wrong about how that moment turned out?" I mean, I'm not saying this thing is going to spark WWIII and we're all going to look back and be like, oh fuck, what did we do? But just the same, I'm going to refrain from pumping my fist in the air, grabbing my crotch, and going, "America, Fuck Yeah!" for just a bit. Because my suspicion is that through all this delusional cheering and celebration, this moment hasn't made one bit of difference. The dead are still dead, and we as a nation are still engaging in the sort of predatory foreign policy that breeds anti-American terrorists. But hey, this one guy's dead, so let's go nuts and forget just how diseased we are until the news coverage peters out and back-to-back reruns of Two and a Half Men come on.

I mean, what do we have to lose, other than ourselves?
posted by Eideteker at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [45 favorites]

Mefi's Own @Hodgman: I think it's ok to take a 12 hour pause on cynicism.
posted by zarq at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

ALso, form the internet

See what happens when you let gays serve in the military?
posted by The Whelk at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [100 favorites]

Ooh, image of White House hallway appearing on whitehouse.gov, replacing color bars...
posted by Miko at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011

D'oooh you, Mr. President.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bring it home Mister President...
posted by zerobyproxy at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011

Camera is live. He better not bring the body with him. That's just weird.
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I see ... a podium! A hallway!
Is it live, or did Keanu Reeves rig up some sort of clever video loop??
posted by Dr. Wu at 8:34 PM on May 1, 2011

Twitter is GREAT right now.

My favorite: @PAPPADEMAS -- Exclusive: Peter Murphy is preparing to make a "major announcement" concerning Bela Lugosi.
posted by penduluum at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [22 favorites]

Wow, showing up to the White House with the Bush/Cheney sign. Classy.
posted by SNWidget at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011

New Yorker. Fuck yeah it's vengeance on goddamn steroids. I hope that douchebag had a few long moments to know he'd been pwned at the end.
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

HOLY SHIT! A PODIUM!
posted by EatTheWeek at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011

Hey, finally, video!
posted by mrgoat at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011

Reuters: "FLASH: U.S. Special Forces led operation that killed bin Laden - U.S. source"
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011

Sorry everyone, but Bin Laden isn't dead so long as Western Civilization's rabid fear of terrorism (with all that entails) is alive and well.
posted by namewithoutwords at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

I'm going to be super dooper unpopular for saying this, but: Who cares?

you seem to be living in PerfectLand, where everything is logical and rational.

I am not really familiar where this state of affairs intersects with the real world.
posted by mokuba at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Y'know what?

I'm really really happy Christopher Hitchens is alive to see this day.
posted by waxbanks at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Here he comes, FINALLY!!!
posted by supercapitalist at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011

The rise of social media - I heard about this on World of Warcraft trade chat (yeah, yeah) and came to MeFi to confirm.

sigh...too bad I work at a newspaper..
posted by ladygypsy at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [28 favorites]

Do you know what makes me the happiest about this news? No more royal wedding news.

But months of Remember 9/11 news stories
posted by filthy light thief at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Fuck yeah
posted by Flunkie at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good news, everybody! We are probably done talking about the Royal Wedding for a while now.
posted by maryr at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

Dead is better than captured. Any trial would be a nightmare in terms of length/complexity/fairness.
posted by Jehan at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

President is on the podium. First words: "What's up, fools?"
posted by boo_radley at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

THE PREZ SPEAKS.
posted by LMGM at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2011

Shush now.
posted by PapaLobo at 8:36 PM on May 1, 2011

I hope this means things will go well for the Arab Spring and for a more sensible foreign policy in the US. I hope this indicates a change in the world for the better.
posted by The Whelk at 8:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

SHHH SHHH IT'S STARTING
posted by rebent at 8:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Is he looking into the wrong camera?
posted by yellowbinder at 8:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: As a thread grows longer, the probability that someone or something will be called racist approaches 1.
posted by ferdinand.bardamu at 8:36 PM on May 1, 2011

Who is Osama bin Laden?
posted by bengalsfan1 at 8:37 PM on May 1, 2011

Speaking now! Love the imagery about 9/11. He's a good orator, no matter what else you think of the man.
posted by Phire at 8:37 PM on May 1, 2011

Who cares?

I saw those buildings burning with my own two eyes. As I watched them, I was fully aware that I had several friends and family who worked in and near them, and that I had no idea whether any of them were alive and well, trapped, or dead.

I care.
posted by Flunkie at 8:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [66 favorites]

Somewhere in an underground medical lab in Pakistan:

"So Mr. Bin Laden, is that your last clone?"
"Ha! No, you never know when you'll need a body, or maybe just a kidney or two."
"Yes, I have much the same philosophy. One can never have too many."
"Good to know Saddam, I had hoped we could work together and I feared the worst when I saw your.. trial"
"Yes, he looked very much like me, it was a strange thing to watch," Hussein grinned.
"Will you be at the 7:30 tomorrow, it promises a continental breakfast with swine." The sneer in bin Laden's voice went all the way from sarcastic to cold.
"Swine? Do you mean the CIA or the aliens?" Hussein, happy to see the joke.
"Ha! It makes no difference, they are both swine. But there will be croissants."
posted by doctor_negative at 8:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

I want to push the camera ever so slightly to the left. It's bugging me.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm seriously more emotional about this than I ever expected to be.

Also, none of my pages are loading right.
posted by nile_red at 8:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

"We offered the wounded our blood" may be totally accurate, but still sounds really creepy and weird.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obama's tie is exactly the same color as the hallway carpet, and of the fabric on the chair on the left. It's uncanny.
posted by Dr. Wu at 8:38 PM on May 1, 2011

Will he call Iraq a misstep?
posted by fleacircus at 8:38 PM on May 1, 2011

Dammit, he's got Bachmann eyes. Someone should tell him where the camera is.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's great news but I suspect that domestically this is going to be used as an excuse to arm HomSec agencies to the teeth rather than to force them to stand down a little. When you're paranoid, everything is a reason for more paranoia.
posted by ardgedee at 8:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Whelk: "From the Internet- It's worth remembering that Bin Laden's plan was to ignite a pan-Middle East civil war which would unite all Muslim nations w/him as leader.

Which ..did not happen."

This sounds a lot like Manson's plan, actually.
posted by mullingitover at 8:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Someone should tell him where the camera is.

On some other outlets he's facing the camera head on - WaPo, NYT. Not sure why the whitehouse.gov camera is using that oblique angle.
posted by Miko at 8:39 PM on May 1, 2011

Early news coverage summary: "people in Afghanistan don't even know what 9/11 means ... Bin Laden is no longer the top person in the terrorist networks"

It's like the royal wedding: it doesn't really matter for the greater good, but it's fun to watch.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obama is owning the fuck out of his administration did this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [18 favorites]

Obama's tie is exactly the same color as the hallway carpet, and of the fabric on the chair on the left. It's uncanny.

Seriously? His tie is a burgundy kind of color, but the chairs that I see in the background are a much lighter/orangey red.
posted by arnicae at 8:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ooh! He's been sitting on this and carefully planning for months. THAT'S Obama style.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

goodnewsfortheinsane: "Reuters obit"

Oooh oooh, do they mention the bit where he was funded and trained by the US???
posted by symbioid at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Obama just got a lot harder to defeat in the presidential election
posted by Gankmore at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Weird. Just read a Something Awful mockery of a John Ringo book where the hero kills bin Laden.

When 9/11 happened I was roaring and angry and wanted revenge against everyone responsible. I'm still not shedding any tears for bin Laden, but it's been so long some of the anger has cooled. Still, it's about time.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011

Flunkie: "378
Who cares?
I saw those buildings burning with my own two eyes. As I watched them, I was fully aware that I had several friends and family who worked in and near them, and that I had no idea whether any of them were alive and well, trapped, or dead.

I care."

Exactly. Same here.

A high school classmate of mine became a fireman after he graduated. Was in the Towers and killed when they collapsed.

I care.
posted by zarq at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

"After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden"

Interesting ...
posted by EatTheWeek at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

abbottabad pakistan
posted by shothotbot at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Bin Laden isn't dead so long as Western Civilization's rabid fear of terrorism (with all that entails) is alive and well.

A few more people will have somewhat less fear because of this. So it's still alive but a little less well. I can't really expect much more.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011

My heart is racing.

I've never felt joy at another person's death before. But mostly relief. Such relief and lightness.
posted by FunkyHelix at 8:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Time to shut down the TSA.
posted by Sphinx at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

Obama emphasizes U.S. not at war with Islam.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

Pres. Obama: "We must remain vigilant at home, and abroad"

Sorry Lord_Pall, no soup (on planes) for you.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011

Wow, this happened in Pakistan....?
posted by Miko at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011

Wow, this happened in Pakistan....?

A lot of stuff is making more sense now.
posted by Miko at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obama: "It took many months to run this thread to ground."

Yeah, well, it's taken under an hour for this thread to run Metafilter into the ground.
posted by gman at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

"After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden"

Interesting ...

That's like real-time conspiracy-trolling!
posted by disillusioned at 8:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

And he's making clear that Muslims aren't the enemy, Al Qaeda is.

He's giving props to Pakistan's intelligence agencies for helping too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Obama should have delivered this from the Oval Office, not the hallway.

But he's claiming personal credit for it ("I determined, and authorized... at my direction").
posted by orthogonality at 8:42 PM on May 1, 2011

Hang on.

If he knew last week where bin Laden definitively was, then....that means that he was working on this the whole time that Trump was pestering him about his birth certificate.

No wonder he looked so pissed-off and "now leave me alone" when he released it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [155 favorites]

So does this mean we can start cutting back on DoD spending?
posted by The Whelk at 8:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Now that bin Laden's been "neutralized", I think it's important to keep in mind he wasn't the actual mastermind of 9/11. While he may have bankrolled and supported the attacks, that title belongs to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, profiled by the New Yorker.

It's a great read, a bit lengthy but I know there is some love for the New Yorker in Mefi, and when I read the KSM profile a while ago I was blown away by how much I had never learned about the history and events leading up to the attacks, and I thought I'd share with youse guys.
posted by papafrita at 8:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [26 favorites]

Hmph. Color me "very very skeptical". I assumed Bin Laden was dead many years ago. If he were alive, why did he stop his mocking messages so long ago? Why did he not gloat at least when Bush left office? It's not like those gloating messages hadn't been of big value to propaganda!

What sort of proof will we get?

Regardless - does that mean we can stop the war on terror now?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

3am Phone Call handled.
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [103 favorites]

Obama: "To those who have lost loved ones, justice has been done."

Thank you, President. My earlier comment was glib. My apologies.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Great emphasis on "I received..." "I decided..." "I directed..." How're those re-election efforts going for you, Obama?
posted by Phire at 8:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

This is indeed good news. Disposition of the body is going to be a huge deal.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 8:44 PM on May 1, 2011

Just...holy fucking shit this is awesome.
posted by nile_red at 8:44 PM on May 1, 2011

Good speech, very earnest, you have to figure he was doing a happy dance before he came out but he is so cool and such a good speaker. Well done.
posted by supercapitalist at 8:44 PM on May 1, 2011

First the White House Correspondent's Dinner, now this. Make no mistake. Obama kills.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

Obama on TV now. People cheering the news outside Hell's Kitchen windows.

Obama couldn't pronounce Ahmedabad and said Ahbadabad, which makes me think he really was born in Hawaii, in spite of all the birth certificate is a forgery sites out there.

Live Blog of President Barack Obama’s speech on Osama Bin Laden

"11:11 They have the body in custody. They have to do a DNA test on it. The government has his sister’s brain for the test."
posted by nickyskye at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow, this happened in Pakistan....?

A lot of stuff is making more sense now.

This particular bit was all about Pakistan, always. It was embarrassingly clear they were holding people, like Bin Laden, and these people are always turned in by the citizens .
posted by The Whelk at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mr. President, can you go get that public option now? 'Cause your poll numbers will soar.

If not, please make the Republican your bitch in some form or fashion.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Obama should have delivered this from the Oval Office, not the hallway.

Appearances are important. Standing is a more active, alert stance than sitting behind a desk.
posted by misha at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Woot! Now, back to tricks!

Congrats, Obama & military insertion team!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011

Not sure I'm a fan of the "The American people have demonstrated that they can do whatever they set their minds to."

I cringed at the way that sentence started.
posted by Phire at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

WOW. Even worse than the "Usama Bin Landen", Fox News on tv confirmed "OBAMA BIN LADEN DEAD". How the fuck do people take them seriously?
posted by inigo2 at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [37 favorites]

Wow. Nice somber walking-off conclusion there. I felt like some credits should've been silently rolling. (But seriously - it was an excellent speech.)
posted by katillathehun at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Whitehouse looks like a pretty lonely joint.
posted by a non e mouse at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011

Pretty much PWND with that speech
posted by Windopaene at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011

I think they put it in the hallway just so they could get that lingering shot of Obama turning around and walking away in silence.
posted by penduluum at 8:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

"After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden"

Don't look too much into this. I'm sure Bin Laden had bodyguards. There was shooting, and Bin Laden was killed.
posted by chemoboy at 8:46 PM on May 1, 2011

Fox News: "Usama Bin Laden is dead, sources say." So apparently now Fox News is counting Barack Obama as one of their "sources."
posted by koeselitz at 8:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Remember when, during the presidential campaign, McCain among others, tried to make hay over comments President Obama had made suggesting he would be willing to make a targeted military intrusion into Pakistan to pursue Osama Bin Laden? They implied that then candidate Obama was being unrealistic and naive.

Yeah, well, that's what President Obama just did, and McCain really looks weak on defense now. I know a man's death is nothing to gloat over, but--well, he had it coming.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [52 favorites]

Great emphasis on "I received..." "I decided..." "I directed..." How're those re-election efforts going for you, Obama?

When things go bad, the buck stops with him. When things go well, it is all politics. Is that what I am getting?
posted by Silvertree at 8:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

So the ISI was involved? If so this probably means that the ISI finally felt that the advantages of hiding Bin Laden were outweighed by the positives of ditching him.
posted by vuron at 8:46 PM on May 1, 2011

From the Internet-

Note the lack of a a let-splay-dress-up flight suit and bullshit plastic banner in the background.

So isn't this like 8 years to the day of the MISSION ACCOMPLISH flight suit stupidity?

Huh.
posted by The Whelk at 8:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Abbottabad, Pakistan
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obama takes out bin Laden and preempts Trump all in one master stroke. That's pretty sweet.
posted by malocchio at 8:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

THAT'S MY MOTHERFUCKING PRESIDENT
posted by Curious Artificer at 8:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [60 favorites]

Great emphasis on "I received..." "I decided..." "I directed..." How're those re-election efforts going for you, Obama?

I can't think of any President in my lifetime who would have delivered this news any differently.
posted by Miko at 8:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

"I ... I ... my ... I"

Maybe Obama isn't taking credit for the polls; it's for the international audience that might look to blame somebody, or some nation, he takes personal responsibility.

The thoughts of a firefight gives me chills.
posted by jabberjaw at 8:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

where's the long form death certificate?
posted by lazaruslong at 8:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama: "Osama was not a leader of Muslims. He was a mass-murderer of Muslims."

How The Osama Announcement Leaked Out
posted by nickyskye at 8:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

METAFILTER: torn between solemn reflection on the horror ten years (and going) of perpetual war has had on this country and searching YouTube for Hulk Hogan's theme music.
posted by philip-random at 8:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Obama to the haters.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

http://isosamabinladendead.com/
posted by inigo2 at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

Honestly, I feel a little bit like I did at the end of Black Swan right now.
posted by katillathehun at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I think they put it in the hallway just so they could get that lingering shot of Obama turning around and walking away in silence.

Gave it a very "taking care of business" kind of tone. The Oval Office is "you'll need to sit down, this is going to be complex."
posted by fleacircus at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

I get the feeling he laid out bait for right wingers to embarrass themselves when he said "Osama Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader."

Great speech. I feel really moved and Obama seems like an action movie war hero. There will probably be an awesome movie made about this.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011

If you felt that the walking away was a little anti-climactic, here's an alternative ending.
posted by Phire at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [29 favorites]

I worry that I'll be singing Makeshift Patriot to myself for a few weeks.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

NBC News: "Special Operations forces carried out the attack in Pakistan. Bin Laden was shot in the head, his body returned to Afghanistan".
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:50 PM on May 1, 2011

and now the internet is slowing to a crawl. Some of you need to go to bed and stop clogging up the tubes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:50 PM on May 1, 2011

Great emphasis on "I received..." "I decided..." "I directed..." How're those re-election efforts going for you, Obama?

One helluva lot better this evening, I'm thinking.
posted by brennen at 8:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

BBC: Karzai to speak
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2011

Regardless - does that mean we can stop the war on terror now?

Everyone loves to put a face on "the enemy." Makes 'em feel good about being bloodthirsty animals. Saddam's death didn't stop the wars. Osama's won't. They'll find another face to put on the cause and keep right on shooting(/bombing/burning/torturing/etc.)
posted by klanawa at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama takes down Bin Laden, Internet
posted by starman at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

As somebody pointed out on another blog, Osama spent the past few months tracking down the motherfucker that murdered 3,000 of my fellow citizens.

The GOP was questioning whether or not he was born in Hawaii.

Fuck Republicans.
posted by bardic at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [96 favorites]

Good speech.

I don't hear any cheering or chanting in the streets of the Mission, but I live In San Francisco.
posted by chemoboy at 8:52 PM on May 1, 2011

Obama takes out bin Laden and preempts Trump all in one master stroke.
AND on the anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" and the death of Hitler. The trifecta (quadrifecta?) of Perfect Timing.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

Now let's see Seth Myers top that!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I won't begrudge him a smoke tonight.
posted by SNWidget at 8:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [18 favorites]

Happy about this news, but I wonder what being happy about the killing of someone in retaliation for crimes (regardless of scope) says about one's stance on the death penalty.
posted by jimmythefish at 8:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think I may actually go to one of the bars in my neighborhood for one quick drink and a linger. Because something's bound to be going on now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:53 PM on May 1, 2011

Can someone confirm what he said? Killed today or killed earlier this week?
posted by double bubble at 8:53 PM on May 1, 2011

Great emphasis on "I received..." "I decided..." "I directed..." How're those re-election efforts going for you, Obama?

He's still Commander in Chief, right?
posted by filthy light thief at 8:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Throws a new light on last week.

Fuck off Trump. The grownups are working.
posted by craven_morhead at 8:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [60 favorites]

and now the internet is slowing to a crawl. Some of you need to go to bed and stop clogging up the tubes.

I'm on it!

D'oh.
posted by sonika at 8:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

hehe. Osbama

I'm a little drunk on justice right now.
posted by bardic at 8:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

The crosshall is part of the state rooms in th WH, totally were you want to announce an event like this.
posted by clavdivs at 8:54 PM on May 1, 2011

Watching the feed of the people spontaneously gathered outside the White House is surprisingly moving. Realpolitik consequences of this whole thing aside, this is still a huge emotional thing for a lot of people.
posted by penduluum at 8:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

What was the last thing Osama said?
Obumma.
posted by a non e mouse at 8:56 PM on May 1, 2011

Happy summer, NYC. I'll have a drink with Alex Hamilton's corpse tomorrow.

On the other hand, Pakistan will probably get hot for a few weeks. I hope what we are giving them is worth it, to them, because there will be blowback there.
posted by vrakatar at 8:56 PM on May 1, 2011

There's already an @GhostOsama on Twitter.
posted by Miko at 8:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah I'm in Manhattan and there is less shouting outside than there usually is, I guess everyone is glued to their TVs.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:56 PM on May 1, 2011

He was living in Pakistan, "in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad". Just let that fact sink in, and think about the implications for a while.
posted by vidur at 8:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Does this mean I can start bringing bombs in my shoes on airplanes again?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Obama mentioned equality for all Americans. How's that marriage equality coming along then?
posted by msbutah at 8:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyone have a link to the presidents press conference ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:57 PM on May 1, 2011

Not seeing any reaction on the Pakistani English language papers - anything in the Urdu press? My guess is that they will be glad to see the end of him, but not thrilled that teams o Americans get to go around killing people. In fact I seem to recall a spot of unpleasantness about that issue.
posted by shothotbot at 8:57 PM on May 1, 2011

Word is Obama penned the speech himself on the fly, hence the long delay.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow. Nice somber walking-off conclusion there. I felt like some credits should've been silently rolling.

I was expecting it to freeze frame right as he jumped in the air pumping his fist, shouting "YEAH!" Then, possibly, the closing credits music from Buckaroo Banzai.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

NBC News: "Special Operations forces carried out the attack in Pakistan. Bin Laden was shot in the head,

Oh shit.
posted by orthogonality at 8:58 PM on May 1, 2011

Was I the only one who found that speech slightly disturbing?

The last part read like: we're a great country, and if we join together we can do great things... like killing Osama bin Laden.

The economy might be in the dumpster, but we sure can kill a guy on the other side of the planet.
posted by Omon Ra at 8:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Makeshift sign outside WH (on BBC World News): "DING DONG BIN LADEN IS DEAD".

Also, BBC: GWB congratulates Obama: "Tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: 'justice will be done'."
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Quick check of international papers: so far, this isn't on the front page of Le Monde, Der Spiegel, or China Daily, but is at The Guardian, El Pais and The Jerusalem Post.
posted by gsteff at 8:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Don't look too much into this. I'm sure Bin Laden had bodyguards. There was shooting, and Bin Laden was killed.

Oh, absolutely, I didn't mean to imply anything too sinister -- I just wonder what the exact circumstances of his death were. Did he die fighting? Was he executed?
posted by EatTheWeek at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2011

but I wonder what being happy about the killing of someone in retaliation for crimes (regardless of scope) says about one's stance on the death penalty.

different events move on different moral, philosphical, political, and practical planes.
posted by mokuba at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

So he was killed in his mansion outside Islamabad then. No hiding in a cave for all these years after all. Have the usual USA=EVIL brigade claimed this is a gross violation of Osama Bin Laden's human rights/a grievous imperialist assault on Pakistan's sovereignty/a cowboy invitation to retaliation/a propaganda bonanza for Al Queda on the 'Arab Street' and all part of a CIA plot to cover up their own involvement in 9/11? No? Good. But they will you know.
posted by joannemullen at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2011

Al Jazeera Live has great follow-up coverage.
posted by Phire at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2011

I really, really want to believe this is good news, but I can't help but feel this is the prelude to some fresh new hell.
posted by codacorolla at 8:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

As I said on FB I take a grim satisfaction in the fact Osama won't be around to "celebrate" the tenth anniversary of 9/11. And I hope and pray this brings some closure to the many who lost loved ones on that day.

But I don't really feel much like gloating. Yep, we've lopped off the head but I am concerned by what else might spring up from the remains.......time to stay alert.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I hope what we are giving them is worth it, to them

Yeah I can't help but wonder what price was, finally, met. We'll probably never know.
posted by fleacircus at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011

Shit just got real.
posted by bardic at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Probably equal to Castro's effort for staying alive despite the best efforts of the USA's DEATH SQUADS!™.

Maybe even better, considering the global, information, satellite tracking age we live in.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011

Well this event seems to have cratered 4chan, not surprisingly, but I'm glad to see that while this site is struggling mightily with the apparent load we still have a place for intelligent commentary.
posted by vuron at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

War Nerd had an interesting analysis of Al Qaeda a few days ago. Excerpt:

It never made sense. That’s what I wish I’d said sooner and louder and more often. The whole concept of Al Qaeda is wrong. The name means “The Base” in Arabic, and the idea is that it’s a central clearinghouse for dozens of different guerrilla groups, sharing an Islamic ideology but representing different countries and tribes and languages. They get together and share intelligence and personnel and materiel, because they’re all good Muslims working for a common cause. It’s the old kiddie dream of a vast umbrella group of baddies, S.P.E.C.T.R.E from Man from Uncle, KAOS in Get Smart, the ridiculous villain and his volcano HQ in every lame Bond film.

It’s just a terrible idea. The last thing any sane guerrilla group wants to do is to go to an international guerrilla jamboree like the Boy Scouts. Sure, you’ll share ideas and prop up each others’ morale—and in the meantime, the informers—because every decent-sized guerrilla group must assume it’s been penetrated—will be taking careful notes, taking quiet candid pictures, and putting together organizational charts. By the time you go to your home country from the big Jihad Jamboree in Waziristan or Tora Bora, you can be sure that the informers have shared their info with their handlers. And although some intel agencies can be stingy, most of them share info very readily, so every informer has in effect given the breakdown of every local group to every intel agency in the world.

And that’s death to a guerrilla, literally death, and not a quick or easy death either. Sharing info is good for intelligence agencies (most of the time; there are exceptions, like sharing the identity of some agents), but it’s the worst thing in the world for guerrillas.

Is There an Al Qaeda?
posted by Kattullus at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

Everyone loves to put a face on "the enemy." Makes 'em feel good about being bloodthirsty animals.

Yeah, the guys who took out bin Laden are animals. I say that because it makes me feel good about being a gutless slacktivist who wants all the killing to stop now that I've got the vote, a lack of Nazis and a big screen TV.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

From the Internet:

Dear Real America: if you ever referred to NYC & Washington as Sodom & Gomorrah, you are disqualified from chanting "USA! USA!" tonight. FYI

Sweet! Osama's dead. Can I get on a plane now without a fingerbanging first? With nail clippers in my bag?
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

How come someone in the "spontaneous celebration outside the white house" is wearing a cape with the flag of Texas on it and is wearing stilts? I guess I haven't been to any raves in D.C. in a while.
posted by chemoboy at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wolf, please let your guest talk - I understand you're excited, but you had him on here for a reason.
posted by SNWidget at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Never mind, found it.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011

wow.
posted by Stynxno at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011

Just want to point out, Schwarzeneggar just left office as governor of California, and a couple of months later, Bin Laden shot in the head after a firefight with no US casualties? Coincidence?
posted by jabberjaw at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [69 favorites]

I know it's not the end, but it for about three hours or so I have hope the world is not inevitabley fucked. Hope...
posted by ozomatli at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2011

Aaaaaand

Al Jezeera English News Video Link, if you wanted
posted by The Whelk at 9:02 PM on May 1, 2011

Oh man, I remember Osama Bin Laden. I love it when a franchise returns to its roots.
posted by DoctorFedora at 9:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

NBC News: "Special Operations forces carried out the attack in Pakistan. Bin Laden was shot in the head, his body returned to Afghanistan".

Oh.
posted by EatTheWeek at 9:02 PM on May 1, 2011

How come someone in the "spontaneous celebration outside the white house" is wearing a cape with the flag of Texas on it and is wearing stilts?

They're probably from Austin. That's our ceremonial dress.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [48 favorites]

Dead is better than captured. Any trial would be a nightmare in terms of length/complexity/fairness.

Actually, no. Dude sent out a video saying he did it. There are no due process issues in this case.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

It seems I spoke too soon. Where would you like him to have been shot orthogonality? The big toe? Through the hair so we didn't hurt him? Do tell.
posted by joannemullen at 9:03 PM on May 1, 2011

Is there a transcript yet? Can't find one.
posted by hat at 9:03 PM on May 1, 2011

I'm finding it really interesting how many people are invested in keeping the fear going. "Oh yeah, so we got him, but don't let your guard down - they're everywhere." I have a feeling forebodings like this will be offered as the justification for the continuance of security theatre and citizen surveillance for some time to come.
posted by Miko at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

Did you notice the President's phrasing? Consistently "War on Al Qaeda" or "War against Bin Laden." Never "War on Terror" or "War against the Axis of Evil."
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [36 favorites]

Sarah Palin killed him.
posted by chasing at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thought experiment: Watch Obama's address again, but imagine its GWB speaking. It makes one far less euphoric.
posted by dry white toast at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2011

Also, Kanye West's new album is a good backdrop for this (if you're into him).

Also, THIS REALLY FUCKING HAPPENED.

I have a bunch of calls I'm supposed to be making to secure a job in Korea, but I really can't focus at all.
posted by nile_red at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is, dare I saw it.... AWESOME!
posted by MaryDellamorte at 9:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

My guess: Obama called Zardari and said, "Dude, we just killed bin Laden within your borders. Wanna say you were in on it, or that you opposed the operation?" </cynicism>
posted by quarantine at 9:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [16 favorites]

I wonder what he died from.

Lead poisoning, apparently.
posted by narwhal bacon at 9:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [16 favorites]

Did you notice the President's phrasing? Consistently "War on Al Qaeda" or "War against Bin Laden." Never "War on Terror" or "War against the Axis of Evil."

It's nice to have a grown-up in the White House.
posted by inigo2 at 9:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [71 favorites]

My cousin: Waldo - 1 Osama - 0
posted by nile_red at 9:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Well, this thread is already a site-crushing monster (I've never seen MetaFilter hiccup before!) but I'll add my little etchings to the wall, anyway...

Actual information about this still seems pretty scarce--BBC alludes to a "firefight" but has no real details at the moment--so maybe the rest will fall into place in time, but...

I just want to say that I'm bothered by some of the bloodthirstiness, gloating and nationalism I'm seeing everywhere I look tonight. I have a sinking feeling that this is not closure, but digging deeper into the "post-9/11" rabbit hole.

I hope I'm not alone in wondering just what happened and were the US' actions lawful and justified, etc. before celebrating the death of a Boogeyman.
posted by byanyothername at 9:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

My first thought: Republicans must be so conflicted. The guy they hate most in the world ... just took out the guy they hate the second most.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 9:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [104 favorites]

Al Jazeera is showing people celebrating in front of the White House with the byline "Osama Bin Laden Killed." Somehow, this seems familiar.
posted by chemoboy at 9:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

(I know the site is a bit pokey tonight, but I am very impressed how well it has held up)
posted by shothotbot at 9:07 PM on May 1, 2011

I took this moment to tell my six year old about Sept. 11. Didn't want to discuss it before.

I tried to sum it up for him by saying "we got the bad guy". He asked "are there still any more members of his gang?" I had to say "yes, a lot".
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

May today be the beginning of the end of the War on Terror. Osama killed, we're leaving Iraq this summer, and Afghanistan ... well, soon, I can hope. So Mote It Be.
posted by andreaazure at 9:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Have the usual USA=EVIL brigade claimed this is a gross violation of Osama Bin Laden's human rights/a grievous imperialist assault on Pakistan's sovereignty/a cowboy invitation to retaliation/a propaganda bonanza for Al Queda on the 'Arab Street' and all part of a CIA plot to cover up their own involvement in 9/11? No? Good. But they will you know.
I have an inkjet printer you can use if you want to print up a whole newsletter full of things you want 2-dimensional characters to say

You've got to love somebody so desperate to get a rise out of people that she preempts arguments from her self-styled opposition with inventions of her own.
posted by invitapriore at 9:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

...what kind of loot did he drop?
posted by MrVisible at 9:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [93 favorites]

Not seeing any reaction on the Pakistani English language papers - anything in the Urdu press

Dawn.com is getting _hammered_ right now; they've put up a notice on their website. Hell, BBC's website also seems to be hammered, but they have thicker pipes.
posted by the cydonian at 9:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Have the usual USA=EVIL brigade claimed this is a gross violation of Osama Bin Laden's human rights/a grievous imperialist assault on Pakistan's sovereignty/a cowboy invitation to retaliation/a propaganda bonanza for Al Queda on the 'Arab Street' and all part of a CIA plot to cover up their own involvement in 9/11? No? Good. But they will you know.

If you run out of axes to grind, I'm sure we can find a few more for you.

I'm not shedding any tears for the guy, but I'd have preferred a trial. I also expect that there'll be big time retaliation, and mass protests in Pakistan over the violation of their sovereignty. Meh.
posted by knapah at 9:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

It would have been better if he had been captured. A confession does not eliminate due process rights. I never expected him to be captured alive, though. I assume the team that pulled this off (buncha badasses no matter how you feel) has the restraint to not just execute him, but they were going into the lion's den. Shit had to be pretty damn real.

Still pretty fuckin' awesome, I just hope we'll see reform for the policies of the last decade and not entrenchment.
posted by polyhedron at 9:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really want them to stop showing the cheering. I find it really disturbing. It's the same gut reaction, to me, as to the shots we've become used to see of mobs of men burning the American flag on the streets of some Middle Eastern city.
posted by maryr at 9:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [25 favorites]

CBS is reporting Osama Bin Laden's body will be "disposed of" so there will not be any sort of grave or shrine that anyone can collect around.

That's ... is that weird to anybody else? Not that I think he deserves a marker or anything, but it still seems unusual. Is there precedent for that? This whole thing is basically unprecedented, though, I guess.

A British friend of mine who was a big history buff and tour guide in Berlin took some of us to the location where Hitler apparently died (well, below the ground in his bunker). But according to my friend the Germans try to keep the location from being public knowledge, for fear of it becoming a rallying point for neo-Nazis and the like.
Never would have known it standing there either. It was just a very ordinary looking parking lot in front of some apartments.
posted by mannequito at 9:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow.

"They're probably from Austin. That's our ceremonial dress."

Must have flown over straight from Eyores birthday.
posted by xarnop at 9:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yay!
posted by caddis at 9:10 PM on May 1, 2011

here's a good tweet -

GhostOsama Osama Bin Laden
@BarackObama I can see your wife naked.

hmm, seems to be gone now
posted by pyramid termite at 9:11 PM on May 1, 2011

From Reddit:

"Osama Bin Laden really shouldn't have used his real address on PSN."
posted by Lord_Pall at 9:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [60 favorites]

In an odd coincidence, I had decided just a couple of hours ago to finally try the Pakistani restaurant around the corner from me. The chana masala was spicy, spicy vengeance.
posted by LMGM at 9:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

My first thought: Republicans must be so conflicted. The guy they hate most in the world ... just took out the guy they hate the second most.

Busy night, Hillary Clinton took out the stereotypical Gay Pride Parade marcher too?
posted by orthogonality at 9:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Please don't feed the troll.
posted by Aquaman at 9:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think I'm a bit ignorant about Bin Laden. Why wasn't he captured and put on trial like Saddam Hussein?
posted by taff at 9:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

That was the most badass walk-off I've ever seen a president perform.
posted by Evernix at 9:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Abbottabad - giving Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings a run for her money. e.g.

The wind hissed as if welcoming us
The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss

And the tiny cuckoo sang it away
A song very melodious and gay

posted by unliteral at 9:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Huh. Hitler was declared dead May 1st, 1945. This is getting eery.
posted by Phire at 9:13 PM on May 1, 2011

1) Yay.

2) About fucking time.

3) I hope the next person that makes the long form death certificate joke gets banned.
posted by Bonzai at 9:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [16 favorites]

A gazillion dollars says that nobody was trying very hard to bring him back alive.
posted by craven_morhead at 9:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am just so fucking thankful he made the distinction between real Muslims and Al-Qaeda. Underscore that shit. Inject neon into it. Tie shiny balloons on it and let it fly.
posted by changeling at 9:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [50 favorites]

This all sounds so Call of Duty: Modern Warfare* to me. I wonder who pulled the trigger on OBL? Were any pithy last words exchanged?

*Ironically, I'd *just* finished COD:MW2 (which climaxes with a showdown in Afghanistan) and turned on Metafilter, to see this thread
posted by Flashman at 9:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thought experiment: Watch Obama's address again, but imagine its GWB speaking. It makes one far less euphoric.
posted by dry white toast at 12:04 AM on May 2 [+] [!]

Okay, I carried out your thought experiment and your results were not confirmed. What's your point?
posted by dogrose at 9:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Does the soldier that killed him get the 25 million dollar reward?
posted by codacorolla at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Okay, I tried, but I can't outrun this thread.

I was there, watching from Sixth Avenue as the second tower fell. For the next seven years I felt like I was holding my breath for the world to right itself again, and thought I'd get that with Obama's election, but personal bullshit going on that night robbed me of that feeling as well.

Tonight feels like surfacing. I know it won't solve much. I know the next few weeks are probably going to be tense. I know it's probably just symbolic.

I don't care. I need the symbol. I need to be able to breathe again.

For anyone asking, "who cares?" seriously. This is a man who killed 3000 people in the U.S. alone. He traumatized a nation. Everything about the justice of the wars and the policy going forward and everything else needs to be discussed but this, this single event, has no grey area. This is good.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [57 favorites]

BBC has it Osama's corpse is in US possession.

Can't wait for the inevitable grinning trophy photos.
posted by gman at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

by the "secular" regimes we prop up and support in Bahrain, Syra, Saudi Arabia and - until very very recently - Libya.

What? Since when did the US support Gaddafi and the Assads?!
posted by kmz at 9:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This will improve America's image in the world and improve Obama's image in America, and both those things are materially important.

I predict a significant faction of birthers will now move on to wondering if Bin Laden is still alive.

From owillis: "here's rove and hannity freaking out in 2008 when obama said he'd get bin laden in pakistan"
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I really want them to stop showing the cheering. I find it really disturbing.

I can't say I find it disturbing, but I am puzzled by the many folks clearly defaulting to that reaction. I wasn't directly involved in the events of 9/11 but was close enough through home and family ties to be profoundly impacted by them and the aftermath. The way I feel right now is sober, and reflective, not running-through-the-streets-waving-flags. I will be interested to learn how the news is being received in my hometown, in a county which lost 150 people on September 11, and how those people who dealt most closely with it have reacted. I guess some people are probably partying but it still seems a strange response.
posted by Miko at 9:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [16 favorites]

but why do i get the uneasy feeling that this may be our last foreign policy coup, that it may well be downhill from here? - our president says this proves that "americans can do anything" - and my heart tells me that we're going to find out that it's simply not true, if it ever was
posted by pyramid termite at 9:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Phire: Hitler was declared dead May 1st, 1945. This is getting eery.

Wiki list: May 1 deaths.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh man Twitter is everywhere.

@jeremyscahill jeremy scahill
7hrs before announcement--> RT @mosharrafzaidi: What was a low-flying heli doing flying around Abottabad Cantt at 0130 hrs?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [26 favorites]

Why wasn't he captured and put on trial like Saddam Hussein?

Saddam was in a hole in the desert, OBL was in a compound with support. Better planning on Osama's part, basically.
posted by polyhedron at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Are they going to release pictures of the corpse / dna proof?
posted by banished at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2011

You know Lee Greenwood is writing a shitty song about this as we speak.
posted by dr_dank at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

Bin Laden was CIA, right, truthers?

So...suicide, yeah?
posted by Sys Rq at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Two interesting points about his speech.

1. When he was talking about how, after 9/11, the US "went after the perpetrators" or whatever, he pointedly did not mention Iraq. Mentioned Afghanistan, mentioned networks, etc, didn't mention Iraq (tacit acknolwedgement that Iraq was a separate issue not connected to finding Bin Laden or disrupting AQ.

2. Explicitly said that he only called the Pakistani president after the fact, to let him know what we had done, and (surprise surprise) the Pakistani pres agreed that it was a good thing. I'm sure there is a lot of calculation built into the exact wording of that section of the speech.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

What? Since when did the US support Gaddafi and the Assads?!

For ages - since about 2004... Stable source of oil and all...
posted by jkaczor at 9:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can't wait for the inevitable grinning trophy photos.

I don't think we'll ever see them. From what I heard this was carried out by some of the most bad ass special forces military teams in existence. They already have the utmost respect from all their peers. They don't need to take pictures to prove it.

I don't think we will ever see his body.
posted by chemoboy at 9:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wiki has a weird formatting error with the Osama headline.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:19 PM on May 1, 2011

I don't really know what the fuck I am feeling. White hot rage at GWB, mostly. Imagine if that fucker had invested the same resources wasted in Iraq on actually getting OBL.

AZ, on twitter, noted (jestingly? dunno) that today is the anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished.'

I was able to convey my honest and heartfelt thanks to a JSOC guy I know via txt, someone who makes me uncomfortable but with whom I have had fascinating conversations with, although he's apparently not overseas. On the other hand, I remain uncomfortable with watching a guy I voted for announcing the success of a targeted assassination operation, even if the man whose brains got blown out is someone I would happily have killed myself.

On balance, not nearly as happy as I thought I would be, in fact, I kind of have a flashback to the pit-of-my-stomach blergh that defined day to day life for me from 2001 to 2008.
posted by mwhybark at 9:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

lead poisioning
posted by clavdivs at 9:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Smoked him out. Eventually.
posted by peacay at 9:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Navy Seals did the raid, according to CNN.
posted by vrakatar at 9:21 PM on May 1, 2011

and nice move Mr. President.
posted by clavdivs at 9:21 PM on May 1, 2011

I feel overjoyed, but I'm not overjoyed that bin Laden is dead. I'm overjoyed that he has been brought to justice, specifically by the country he attacked. I would be even more jubilant if he was in custody. Since this operation involved a gunfight, it seems that wasn't possible.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

filthy light thief: "Phire: Hitler was declared dead May 1st, 1945. This is getting eery.

Wiki list: May 1 deaths."

Wasn't declared until May 1st though.
posted by Phire at 9:22 PM on May 1, 2011

filthy light thief: "Wiki list: May 1 deaths."

Spike Jones died on May 1st. Coincidence? I think not!
posted by brundlefly at 9:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Holy crap, nearly 600 comments already? That sure flew by.

Also, flashback to the 2008 presidential debate:

Obama: "[I]f we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority."
posted by Rhaomi at 9:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

Ironically, it was a pretzel that did him in.
posted by Busithoth at 9:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

This is gonna be an action movie in a few years (Or next week)
posted by nile_red at 9:23 PM on May 1, 2011

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will." Sen. Barack Obama - August 2007
posted by mikelieman at 9:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

!!!!!
posted by bjgeiger at 9:24 PM on May 1, 2011

Fireworks going off in our neighborhood.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:24 PM on May 1, 2011

I don't think we will ever see his body.

we will, of course - failing to show that would wind up the conspiracy kooks endlessly
posted by pyramid termite at 9:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

He dead
posted by garlic at 9:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

The amount of Obama/Osama transposition fuckups tonight have been way below my expectations for something like this.
posted by tehloki at 9:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
posted by clavdivs at 9:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

Abottabad is named after Major James Abott who founded the town in 1853.
Fascinating
posted by Flashman at 9:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

The amount of Obama/Osama transposition fuckups tonight has been way below my expectations for something like this.
posted by tehloki at 9:26 PM on May 1, 2011

lol /b/ nsfw autoplaying music
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

we will, of course - failing to show that would wind up the conspiracy kooks endlessly

As opposed to... ?
posted by mikelieman at 9:26 PM on May 1, 2011

Beautiful, stark front page of Dutch newspaper NRC's site.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Isn't publishing photos of his body a war crime, albeit minor?
posted by Justinian at 9:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is a man who killed 3000 people in the U.S. alone.

Not really, perhaps, but I come at this whole issue kinda weirdly I guess. OBL had the right to fuck our shit up for whatever reasons he thought were valid (support of Israel's actions in Lebanon, our military presence in KSA, whatever), and we had the right to fuck his shit up in return.

Kinda "just business" (in the Godfather sense), I guess.

Never would have known it standing there either. It was just a very ordinary looking parking lot in front of some apartments.

yeah this was on the East German side of Berlin and they redeveloped the site of the Chancellery into flats, quite nice architecture, actually.

The Russians eventually pitched the remains they were holding into the Elbe, apparently.
posted by mokuba at 9:27 PM on May 1, 2011

National holiday on May 1st? Can I suggest something having to do with workers rights?
posted by jph at 9:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

@hodgman (MeFi's own) Let's have a thought for the servicemen and women and their families who have been asked everything, for 10 yrs, @ the end of this one story.

I want us out of Afghanistan fast. I want the "Patriot Act" gone. I want to be able get on a plane with a bottle of water. But can we, just for today, celebrate that a genuine terrorist, a person who fomented hatred, will no longer have that opportunity? I'm raising a glass to President Barack Obama and the forces who accomplished their task. It's Freedom From Cynicism Day at the 55 household.
posted by theora55 at 9:28 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

image macro
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:28 PM on May 1, 2011 [27 favorites]

Full text of Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden at The Globe and Mail
posted by hat at 9:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Honestly, the US govt, hell Henry Kissinger has been directly responsible for killing more innocent people than Osama Bin Laden could have even dreamt of. There are no military actions, or protests, or celebrations about that.

FWIW, I will totally have a similar celebration for Kissinger.
posted by naoko at 9:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

And stop frisking my fucking junk already.

You mean a freedom fondle?
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Another image macro
posted by pompomtom at 9:30 PM on May 1, 2011

Abottabad is named after Major James Abott who founded the town in 1853.
Fascinating
posted by Flashman

Eponysterical.
posted by orthogonality at 9:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

oops
posted by pompomtom at 9:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'll reserve my hallelujahs for the announcement that this means we're actually getting the hell out of Afghanistan. Though I will totally cop to whooping hysterically at imagining a dozen GOP presidential hopefuls going "aw, FUCK" all Ralphie-style at the news.

Now to try to figure out what Sarah Palin's objection would be. I'm torn between "WHY WEREN'T THE AMERICAN PEOPLE INFORMED AHEAD OF TIME?" and "WELL, OF COURSE: IT TAKES A MUSLIM TO FIND A MUSLIM."
posted by scody at 9:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

If his body is not displayed, it brings up the consipiracy kooks that, at this point, I think the administration has an upper hand in. It also shows a little bit of restraint and makes the U.S. look good in that we are not gloating despite what we consider to be an important victory. It counters a lot of the cowboy diplomacy that has been displayed in the first eight years of the last decade.

If his body is displayed, apart from the opposite of everything I said above happening, it also will create a visible image of a martyr for opponents of the US to rally around. It will give some a reason to take up arms.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.
posted by chemoboy at 9:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Personally feeling a little less safe right now. Not saying it shouldn't have happened -- but retribution is a powerful motive.
posted by quarantine at 9:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Al Jazeera English is now showing heavily watermarked footage from a different broadcaster of a building on fire and some sort of armed uniformed men standing on a rooftop. Not sure how it fits in but it they are intriguing pictures.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:33 PM on May 1, 2011

"FWIW, I will totally have a similar celebration for Kissinger."

I'll buy the champagne.
posted by bardic at 9:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

OBL had the right to fuck our shit up

He didn't have the "right," he had the freedom. There's an important difference. I don't excuse US war crimes from this distinction either, but they're just not reasonably something you can ever call a "right." They are all possibilities in a world of free agency.
posted by Miko at 9:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

We don't need to be total assholes about it, but we can be pleased about it.
posted by vrakatar at 9:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Here's a GIF of Obama's swagger exit after the speech. You're welcome.
posted by Phire at 9:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

swag
posted by nile_red at 9:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's 12:31 a.m. and bikes are heading down Independence Avenue. More bikes that I've seen all spring! People with flags are walking across the Capitol grounds heading to the White House. Cabs are either full or off duty if you can find one. People walking greet one another as they only do after a snowfall.
posted by jgirl at 9:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm sure we'll get more details, but here are some pictures of Abbottabad Pakistan where it seems Osama was hiding... Was he a member of this Golf club? Did he play Hockey here? It is also the home of Pakistan's elite military academy. From Google earth the place looks like a modern (and quite pretty) city. The place has resorts. Now, if we had only had Street view done there maybe we could have caught him climbing a fence or something while surfing the net. Not quite the cave I've imagined for the last ten years.
posted by astrobiophysican at 9:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

NPR: According to senior administration officials briefing reporters, bin Laden did "resist the assault force" during the firefight that led to his death.
posted by EatTheWeek at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

While we're talking about 9-11, I'd like to take a second and thank the people of Flight 93. I rolled my eyes at the "Let's roll." rah-rah craziness, but I later realized that if that flight was indeed headed for the White House, then there is a chance that their actions saved my life. So, thank you.

As for Bin Laden, I would have liked to see him captured, but the bright side of his death is that he doesn't get to say anything ever again.
posted by Alison at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Beautiful, stark front page of Dutch newspaper NRC's site.

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DOOD

'... WHERE'S MY HEAD?'
posted by Anything at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Personally feeling a little less safe right now. Not saying it shouldn't have happened -- but retribution is a powerful motive.

Heh, my parents are on a cruise to Israel right now. Kind of hoping the state department just tells them to stay on the boat, but this means a lot to them.
posted by polyhedron at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2011

CBS is reporting Osama Bin Laden's body will be "disposed of" so there will not be any sort of grave or shrine that anyone can collect around.

Chuck him into the pigsty and let the hogs take care of him.
posted by dersins at 9:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

That's my muthafuckin President! Working's going to be so fun tomorrow!
posted by Flex1970 at 9:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

According to the Al Jazeera correspondants, the footage of a building on fire is, allegedly, the compound where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. I do not think they are certain on it.
posted by chemoboy at 9:36 PM on May 1, 2011

OBL had the right to fuck our shit up for whatever reasons he thought were valid (support of Israel's actions in Lebanon, our military presence in KSA, whatever), and we had the right to fuck his shit up in return.

I cannot even parse what you possibly mean by this that isn't sociopathic.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

From a friend's Facebook (CS geek, in case it wasn't obvious):

rm -rf /bin/laden

posted by kmz at 9:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [30 favorites]

So, he built a fucking Osama-base in the middle of a city five years ago and nobody from the ISI noticed? Godammit Pakistan.
posted by Artw at 9:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

I read this far before making this comment in order to have this in my recent activity.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

"as well as a woman apparently used as a human shield."
So that's why he said there were no US casualties but said only that they had "taken care to avoid" civilian casualties, which doesn't necessarily imply they succeeded in avoiding civilian casualties.

Also looking at transcript, he says "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body" - suggesting that he was indeed executed, following a firefight? (Or is that clumsy wording and he was killed during the firefight? Would Obama be that clumsy in phrasing this key sentence? I doubt it.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

He didn't have the "right," he had the freedom. There's an important difference.

I believe everyone has a sovereign right to do whatever they want. If it's wrong, hopefully they learn from it and make amends.

The Germans had the right to roll over Poland, and we -- well, the UK and France I guess -- had the right to try and stop them.

History will hopefully sort everything out eventually. "Sovereign freedom" vs "right" is just a hair too thin for me.
posted by mokuba at 9:38 PM on May 1, 2011

I agree that we cannot display the body.

But my fantasy is this:

In prez debate, Romney argues taxes--Obama simply raises severed head of bin Laden in response to every question.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [130 favorites]

Just heard this driving home from work in NZ & my immediate thought was "wow, that is cool".

The news report went on to say the US Govt had proof, and that they wouldn't confirm it unless it was true - my guilty second thought was "Just like WMDs?"
posted by MatJ at 9:39 PM on May 1, 2011

The economy might be in the dumpster, but we sure can kill a guy on the other side of the planet.

After ten years of chasing him and billions of dollars invested.

Team America...

FUCK YEAH!
posted by dave78981 at 9:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Kasie Hunt (Politico politics writer), who is on the conference call says: Officials on the handling of OBL's body: "We are making sure it is handled in accordance with Islamic tradition and practice."
posted by thebestsophist at 9:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [14 favorites]

They are finally showing New York, gotta say I wish there were more kissing and less chanting.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Obama's speech in brief.
posted by Rinku at 9:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

I would now like to bring a lot of troops home, cut some defense programs and give the money to the VA and other supporting institutions to help vets transition to being a civilian. The US military has been at war for 10 years, we need to step it down before we create a permeant warrior class.

Also, can we talk about the Public Option NOW?

Also, Republican leaning relatives, expect a phone call tomorrow.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Here's a GIF of Obama's swagger exit after the speech.

What I really want is that image plus at the end just that one shot in Drumline where Nick Cannon drops the drumsticks and walks off.
posted by penduluum at 9:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

So I don't know a lot about computers but from what I understand at this point mathowie and pb are in a basement filled with rising water frantically pumping one of those two-handled seesaw things to keep this thread up? Is that more or less how this works?

I was thinking more that pb's shoveling coal into the server as fast as he can, and mathowie runs in every few minutes with another wheelbarrow full of coal.
posted by rtha at 9:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [23 favorites]

Can't believe it's been almost ten years.
posted by chinston at 9:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow. Nice somber walking-off conclusion there. I felt like some credits should've been silently rolling.

One wants to see the reverse angle of this. Obama walking toward the camera while behind his back, there's a huge explosion. This is various Republican pundits spontaneously combusting.

I was expecting it to freeze frame right as he jumped in the air pumping his fist, shouting "YEAH!" Then, possibly, the closing credits music from Buckaroo Banzai.

Buckaroo Banzai closing credits.

And finally. May 1 - 1994. Ayrton Senna killed in San Marino Grand Prix (Imola, Italy).
posted by philip-random at 9:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

I am starting to agree on wishing these cheering mobs would go home. It looks terrible. At least if you want to leave your house and be with others, understandable, how about a candlelight vigil for the tens (?) of thousands dead in this set of wars?
posted by Miko at 9:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

I believe everyone has a sovereign right to do whatever they want.

If anyone has the right to do anything, then how are "rights" even a meaningful concept? Wouldn't that make "X has the right to do Y" a tautology?
posted by teraflop at 9:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

I try very hard to not wish for or celebrate the death of anyone. But I'd happily dance on that fucker's grave.

Fuck politics. Just for tonight - fuck it. Bin Laden was a Bad Man. Yeah, there are lots of Bad Men, even in the US. But he was Big Bad, and he's gone. Even if the news had been that Bin Laden had died of natural causes or in a car wreck or something, I'd still be pleased with the news of his death.
posted by Lulu's Pink Converse at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I cannot even parse what you possibly mean by this that isn't sociopathic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzZxBUxg0Sg#t=5s

History is too messy to figure out who's right & wrong, but hopefully, eventually "right makes might".

I find this form of morality works best to square with the bloody history of my forebears on this continent, 1608 ~ 1900 or thereabouts. After all, every city I've lived in until recently has had a Spanish name, and one day that got me wondering . . .
posted by mokuba at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2011

I'm a bit sad that the idiotic word "closure," so beloved of self-appointed psychologists, annoying grief counselors, and Oprah, is going to be uttered, written, and blogged approximately nine hundred trillon times in the next seven days, guaranteeing for all future time that everyone will believe there is such a thing.
posted by sonascope at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [21 favorites]

I'm a bit repulsed by the hoorawing going on. Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion; there's no reason he couldn't have been arrested and given a trial. I can't imagine that there was any genuine urgency about this, some sort of plot that has been foiled by his death. It was just revenge and the chance for a photo op. Incidentally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was at least as guilty of the September 11th attacks as Osama bin Laden; why haven't you shot him yet?
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Knowing that Obama had just given the order to assassinate Bin Laden not long before the Correspondent's Dinner gives even more zing to this zinger:

"But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn't blame Lil' Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. (Laughter and applause.) Well handled, sir. Well handled."

posted by Missiles K. Monster at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [31 favorites]

After ten years of chasing him and billions of dollars invested.

Trillions.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Officials on the handling of OBL's body: "We are making sure it is handled in accordance with Islamic tradition and practice

Welcome to the next Republican talking point.
posted by Flunkie at 9:45 PM on May 1, 2011

What a long ten years this has been.

I find myself digging out some screenshots I took on Sept 11, 2001:
ABC News
CBS News
NBC News
posted by churl at 9:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Just chiming in along with everyone else.
posted by awfurby at 9:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

They have to show the body. People, particularly in the Muslim world, do not automatically believe everything the US Government says.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

COUNTER-TERRORISTS WIN!
posted by Rinku at 9:46 PM on May 1, 2011

dersins: Chuck him into the pigsty and let the hogs take care of him.

While I'm quite sure that the frat boys cheering "U-S-A U-S-A" outside the White House would also like to see something along those lines, I can't imagine that the reprisals for such a petty act would be worth the brief satisfaction one gets from revenge.
posted by gman at 9:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The geography professor who predicted Osama's location was off by about 450km / seven hours.

So Abbottabad is a hill-station-like town in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains; seems like an entry point to Pakistan's north. It also the location of Pakistan Military Academy, along with other cantonment installations.
posted by the cydonian at 9:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm a bit repulsed by the hoorawing going on. Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion; there's no reason he couldn't have been arrested and given a trial.

This is terribly naive. What are you suggesting, a couple of NYPD officers could have waltzed in, Mirandized him, and escorted him to a waiting cruiser in handcuffs?
posted by Justinian at 9:47 PM on May 1, 2011 [22 favorites]

there's no reason he couldn't have been arrested and given a trial.

Piece of cake, I'm sure.
posted by mmmbacon at 9:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

jimmythefish: Happy about this news, but I wonder what being happy about the killing of someone in retaliation for crimes (regardless of scope) says about one's stance on the death penalty.

It's precisely because I'm happy about this news that I oppose the death penalty. I should not be trusted with this power.
posted by Richard Daly at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [44 favorites]

Officials on the handling of OBL's body: "We are making sure it is handled in accordance with Islamic tradition and practice

Welcome to the next Republican talking point.

Better Republicans grousing (they'll always find something to grouse about) than giving a grievance and casus belli to radical Muslims (who in fairness, will always find something to be upset about, just like Republican politicians do).
posted by orthogonality at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is gonna be an action movie in a few years (Or next week)

Yeah, Will Smith is probably doing the happy dance right about now.
posted by fuse theorem at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

"After a shootout, the suspect was killed by police." Doesn't mean the police executed the guy.

Ok, in that phrase, I can hear it the way you're suggesting.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2011

CNN now also showing the footage from GEO TV shown on Al Jazeera English earlier.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2011

Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion; there's no reason he couldn't have been arrested and given a trial.

he and his bodyguards weren't going to surrender - they were shooting at the people who were trying to capture him
posted by pyramid termite at 9:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Incidentally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was at least as guilty of the September 11th attacks as Osama bin Laden; why haven't you shot him yet?

I suspect the 'problems' we've had handling ol' Khalid heavily influenced our choice of actions here.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Our soldiers are just incredible. Just to operate under that kind of pressure, when you know you're close, and that they're armed, and what success or failure means. No one does it better than the USA.
posted by Flex1970 at 9:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm a bit repulsed by the hoorawing going on. Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion; there's no reason he couldn't have been arrested and given a trial.

The President stated he ordered capture or kill. There was a fire fight. Bin Laden was killed.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

then how are "rights" even a meaningful concept?

I admit this is pretty zen. Like I said above, this is a "weird" morality. Could be profound, could be really stupid, dunno.

I also came about this morality in studying the Axis powers in WW2. The people fighting for the German and Japanese national causes didn't think they were doing evil, they thought they were doing what was right.

I think this "weird" morality actually humanizes our enemies, and knocks our own actions off the moral pedestals we like to keep them mounted on.
posted by mokuba at 9:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I find myself digging out some screenshots I took on Sept 11, 2001

*Pours some out for the Classic Mac OS*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

Incidentally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was at least as guilty of the September 11th attacks as Osama bin Laden; why haven't you shot him yet?

We thought maybe he knew where Osama Bin Laden was.

Anywho, I am a bit surprised how pumped people are. It's nice and all. Not sure how much it changes. But I think perhaps this is more an indication of how disengaged my disgust has made me, these past few years.
posted by Diablevert at 9:50 PM on May 1, 2011

I - for one - hope that Osama bin Laden enjoys his 72 clapped-out virgins in hell.
posted by cinemafiend at 9:51 PM on May 1, 2011

It's worth considering the political reality that had Osama bin Laden been captured he would have been executed in cold blood.
posted by polyhedron at 9:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

InTrade contract on OBL rises 1,622%.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 9:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Several of my friends have posted this Mark Twain quote on Facebook and Twitter tonight and I think it fits: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

Very proud of our US military. Job well done!
posted by SisterHavana at 9:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

A photo will be mysteriously "leaked" to the National Enquirer.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:51 PM on May 1, 2011

New York Times Obituary.
posted by thebestsophist at 9:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

After seeing his election victory speech and now this, I am pretty sure that if we cure cancer, invent free energy, or make first contact with an alien race of space babes on a mission to pleasure us, Obama will just give us the news straight.
posted by blargerz at 9:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

For those uneasy about the scenes of celebration, remember also that a lot of these kids were like 9 years old when 9/11 happened. For them it's like Obama killed the devil.

Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion

It was a compound with a 12-18' barbed wire fence and armed guards.
posted by gerryblog at 9:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh gawd: "Today, the American people have seen justice," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.), whose Long Island district lost many in the 2001 attacks, said in a statement. "In 2001, President Bush said, 'We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.' President Bush deserves great credit for putting action behind those words. President Obama deserves equal credit for his resolve in this long war against al-Qaeda." via
posted by peeedro at 9:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I admit this is pretty zen. Like I said above, this is a "weird" morality. Could be profound, could be really stupid, dunno.

Yeah, uh, I could help you out with the answer here...
posted by Justinian at 9:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Saw this on Mefite's Facebook page, thought it might be good to keep in mind:

The Prov 24.17, "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice"; Ezek 18.32, "I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord"; Ezek 33.11, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked." We rejoice when evil acts end; we do not rejoice when anyone falls.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [78 favorites]

I have no idea what to think about this.
posted by OrangeDrink at 9:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Better Republicans grousing (they'll always find something to grouse about) than giving a grievance and casus belli to radical Muslims (who in fairness, will always find something to be upset about, just like Republican politicians do).

I guess I should be clear that I wasn't advocating doing differently.
posted by Flunkie at 9:53 PM on May 1, 2011

I so want to play Splinter Cell: UBL.
posted by Camofrog at 9:53 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

>"After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body" - suggesting that he was indeed executed, following a firefight?

>>That simply doesn't suggest that. The conclusion of a firefight was the killing of bin Laden.

Obama's words were surely chosen very clearly. If Osama had been killed in the course of a firefight, he would have said that. If Obama says he was killed "after a firefight" I presume he means exactly that - either executed or finished off.
posted by Flashman at 9:53 PM on May 1, 2011

I have Obama socks (bought in a subway station in Seoul) that suddenly come in quite handy.
posted by nile_red at 9:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

It was a compound with a 12-18' barbed wire fence and armed guards.

And a volcano with a skull on it.
posted by Artw at 9:54 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

A photo will be mysteriously "leaked" to the National Enquirer.

...Of Bin Laden being readied for burial in proper Islamic fashion.
They know what to do.
posted by BillBishop at 9:54 PM on May 1, 2011

Flashman, that's a long way to leap based on word choice. It's been reported that bin Laden was resisting his capture when he died. There's no reason to assume this was an execution.
posted by gerryblog at 9:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Marking my place in recent activity so I can do something other than F5 all night.
posted by Space Kitty at 9:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Memo from the rest of the world,

America, the execution of one of your enemies is not at all like winning the Super Bowl. Please restrain yourselves.

thank you.
love,
Us
posted by Omon Ra at 9:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

AHHH Why are all the comments reposting 3 times? Anyone else seeing that?
posted by wowbobwow at 9:56 PM on May 1, 2011

Historic moment. I'm keeping my eyes on Geo News. I expect of the best journalism will be coming from the local outlets.
posted by phyrewerx at 9:56 PM on May 1, 2011

There's no reason to assume this was an execution.

It's not an assumption. It's what was said: he was killed after the firefight.
posted by pompomtom at 9:57 PM on May 1, 2011

STOP REPOSTING HUMANS GIVE THE SITE SOME TIME.
posted by vrakatar at 9:57 PM on May 1, 2011

I wonder what he died from.

Natural causes. When you get your head blown off, naturally, you die.
posted by codswallop at 9:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Did the Allies celebrate the death of Hitler?
posted by chemoboy at 9:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I admit this is pretty zen. Like I said above, this is a "weird" morality. Could be profound, could be really stupid, dunno

Well, it's definitely not Zen, which also has a specific definition, and I'd just recommend if you want to call something a "right" to maybe read some more about what rights are.

I agree with you to an extent - self-interested, tribal behavior like that in countries at war is just that, self-interested tribal behavior; but on the other hand, it's possible to consider that very kind of innocently self-interested behavior to be itself the root of evil.
posted by Miko at 9:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

What'd you guys think of the speech though?

I couldn't help thinking - and I really do not think this is a cynical moment at all - but I couldn't help thinking of Obama at a poker table just raking in his chips. Big grin, everything. See ya tomorrow night boys! I'll take that! Boy, how am I going to count all this??!!

But seriously, let's see - first of all, at the risk of sounding like a cheerleader, I thought it was an excellent speech, pitch perfect, so well-delivered... "justice is served." i'm proud to be an american. On the political side, huge upside for the prez, major boost to his reelection ('may the best sound bite win') although there's no guarantee in these economic times, with all bets off in the republican primary. Another thing - don't you think a lot of people were watching that probably never watch the news? People - and I mean, not only news hounds, but people who can't even locate the capital on a map - are going to REMEMBER this. This is really going to redefine the president in the minds of a lot of americans. I could seriously imagine people out there watching this and thinking, "hey, maybe I had this guy all wrong." It resets the tone at a time when Obama really needed it, but it's a permanent mark - a legacy achievement, and for my money, he nailed it - he out Bushed Bush, and at the same time, he reminded us of all the reasons why he's Not Bush. The speech wasn't snarky towards W, but it didn't need to be. it was almost eerie how above the fray it was - as though the white hot force of facts had just blown away the political competition. A moment of force, like Hiroshima...Obama was enola gay, and the republicans were the japanese walking helpless in the streets.

Question: ARE the democrats going to handle this well? If they handle it well they could convert it into gaining the upper hand on the terrorism issue, starting TOMORROW. Obama, with his speech tonight, has set the tone perfectly for that. If we can convert that into a comprehensive energy bill early next term, then I'm for it. But somehow I don't see the democrats being that politically smart, they'll probably dither and squirrel around as usual.
posted by friendlymilkman at 9:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

"In 2001, President Bush said, 'We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.'

I uh . . . scope of the mission . . . he's now a person who's now been marginalized . . . uh, uh . . . so, I don't know where he is . . .
posted by mokuba at 9:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Flashman, that's a long way to leap based on word choice. It's been reported that bin Laden was resisting his capture when he died. There's no reason to assume this was an execution.

Besides, whichever one of the SEALs that popped the cap will likely cop to it and tell the story to Meredith Viera; he may as well step up and accept his tickertape parade. So we'll probably hear one side of the story.
posted by Diablevert at 9:58 PM on May 1, 2011

I was thinking more that pb's shoveling coal into the server as fast as he can, and mathowie runs in every few minutes with another wheelbarrow full of coal.

and then, later that night you were - lying, looking up at the ceiling, and the water in your head, was not dissimilar to the landscape .. and you think to yourself, why is it that the landscape is moving, but .... the boat, is still?
(seems appropriate for this thread)
posted by mannequito at 9:58 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Sorry it took so long..."
posted by scalefree at 9:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [11 favorites]

America, the execution of one of your enemies is not at all like winning the Super Bowl. Please restrain yourselves.

Enemy of all the world. As a former Londener I'll happily dance on the fuckers grave.
posted by Artw at 9:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Obama's words were surely chosen very clearly. If Osama had been killed in the course of a firefight, he would have said that. If Obama says he was killed "after a firefight" I presume he means exactly that - either executed or finished off.

You can presume anything you like. I'll stick to facts as presented.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was thinking more that pb's shoveling coal into the server as fast as he can, and mathowie runs in every few minutes with another wheelbarrow full of coal.

Funny, I always pictured the setup here involving a donkey tied to a pole going around and around in a circle.

On topic, I am also put off by the woo-hoo cheering, as if this whole thing was a football playoff or something. Someone just set off fireworks in my neighborhood, too.

America Is Weird.
posted by Aquaman at 10:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

US special forces are the definition of professional. CinC gave an order and they carried it out as cleanly as possible.

Hopefully this makes withdrawal from the region an easier sell.
posted by strange chain at 10:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Prov 24.17, "Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
These are times we should celebrate, as opposed to gloat.

Like thousands of years of the oppressed repeatedly overthrowing tyrants, in whatever form, the act of freeing ourselves from a form of terrorism should rightfully be a happy time.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

My thoughts, in sequence

- Horrible man dead, good.
- Boy, Obama just seems so freaking competent.
- Exhale deep breath.
- Exhale deeper breath.
- Oh fuck, the number of people who are going to scream their joy that God granted this unique boon to his favorite country, America, is going to be nauseating. No TV for a week or so, I guess.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [21 favorites]

The weirdest part of the speech for me was this sentence:

The cause of securing our country is not complete, but tonight we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.

I know it was meant to be positive, but I remember when our nation's aspirations were going to the moon, not just putting a bullet in somebody's head.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [66 favorites]

mattdidthat, not really. I have a lot more trouble with the war on drugs than with the war on terror, being Mexican n' all. And killing Bin Laden isn't going to really solve anything or stop the war, so meh.
posted by Omon Ra at 10:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Google Earth: bin Laden compound.
posted by scalefree at 10:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

Obama's words were surely chosen very clearly. If Osama had been killed in the course of a firefight, he would have said that. If Obama says he was killed "after a firefight" I presume he means exactly that - either executed or finished off.

Is American English (the same may be true of other dialects of English) your first language? If not, I can understand your confusion. The word "after" is often used to mean "during." I think you are reading too much into this.

If the special forces executed bin Laden after capturing, they wouldn't have hidden it with wordplay. They would have hidden it with a lie.
posted by chemoboy at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

I was thinking more that pb's shoveling coal into the server as fast as he can, and mathowie runs in every few minutes with another wheelbarrow full of coal.

"Never mind the coal Matt, just get on the hamster wheel, it's our only hope!"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

"Did the Allies celebrate the death of Hitler?"

Yes, of course they did.
posted by bardic at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

remember also that a lot of these kids were like 9 years old when 9/11 happened. For them it's like Obama killed the devil.

There might be something to this. Also, scanning the faces of the young crowd, they are of an age where they're a lot more likely to have active duty friends than I am. But still...the images may not only chagrin some of us but could play even less well in non-American quarters.
posted by Miko at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2011

Damnit, the BBC World Service is leading with the stupid frat boy assholes doing the Yoo Ess Ayy chant in front of the White House. Shut. the fuck. up, stupid frat boys. You're embarrassing.
posted by craichead at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pretty sure he was your enemy, too. But you're welcome.

Oh hey welcome back mattdidthat.
posted by dersins at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2011

I wonder if Obama and Bill Clinton have high dived yet.
posted by Artw at 10:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

No problem with the celebration, just hope we get an iconic photo.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:04 PM on May 1, 2011

America, the execution of one of your enemies is not at all like winning the Super Bowl

That's loser talk. How about getting with the program? Why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Well, it's definitely not Zen, which also has a specific definition

I was thinking in the Rinzai school meaning, actually, with all the koans and stuff. Not that I know more about zen than some casual reading.

it's possible to consider that very kind of innocently self-interested behavior to be itself the root of evil.

I think it goes deeper than that. Life just goes on, I guess. Perhaps this is what Vonnegut's "So it goes" is also referent to. We are imperfect beings unable to fully figure out the ripples and ramifications of our actions. We may not always be in the right, and the people we are fighting may not always be in the wrong. We need to live and learn.
posted by mokuba at 10:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Incidentally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was at least as guilty of the September 11th attacks as Osama bin Laden; why haven't you shot him yet?

Because they were able to capture him.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'd just recommend if you want to call something a "right" to maybe read some more about what rights are.

I think the OP meant rights in the sense of sovereign rights, which do traditionally include the right of a state actor to make war. If I'm correctly remembering my high school philosophy, that's as established by jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius.

So perhaps we should cut the OP a break; he's stretching things a bit by implying Al Queda can be a sovereign actor, but he's not grossly incorrect about international law.
posted by orthogonality at 10:05 PM on May 1, 2011

I don't actively identify as a pacifist, but events like this show me the degree to which I am. I can't find it in me to rejoice over anyone's death, let alone cheer for a state hunting down a single man and killing him, largely, it seems, for the sake of optics. Revenge, bloodlust and patriotism are the things that keep me up at night. These celebratory scenes are deeply disturbing to me.

It's been an uncomfortable evening on social media, and I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
posted by Hildegarde at 10:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [38 favorites]

LOL America Fuck Yeah!
posted by Aquaman at 10:06 PM on May 1, 2011

Geraldo: "This is our Cairo moment."

No. Please stop.
posted by narwhal bacon at 10:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [21 favorites]

The cause of securing our country is not complete, but tonight we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.

I know it was meant to be positive, but I remember when our nation's aspirations were going to the moon, not just putting a bullet in somebody's head.

This, this, a thousand times this.
posted by Omon Ra at 10:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Kasie Hunt's twitter: from "conference call" with "senior administration officials":

They will not clarify whether "small US team" was military or non-military.
OBL's body will be handled in accord with Islamic custom.
They say we did not share intel with Pakistan or any other country about OBL's location or this operation.
One woman was killed when she was used as a human shield by a male combatant.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:06 PM on May 1, 2011

wonder if Obama and Bill Clinton have high dived yet.

They have late night pool dates?
posted by vrakatar at 10:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Fucking crazyass twenty-first century we're all having, huh?
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

if anyone is not following hodgman on twitter this would be a good time to start. He's retweeting like a motherfucker.
posted by Bonzai at 10:07 PM on May 1, 2011

I wonder if Obama and Bill Clinton have high dived yet.

More likely a cannonball.
posted by mannequito at 10:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's not an assumption. It's what was said: he was killed after the firefight.

It's interpretation. You're parsing a sentence to tease out a meaning that is almost certainly not intended. Instead of leaping to start another conspiracy theory, why don't you actually dig up some evidence of execution. Failing that, you're just generating noise.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

scalefree

Ooohoo, thanks - those reviews were just awesome...

"bulletproof windows not as advertised"
posted by jkaczor at 10:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I will celebrate in front of the White House when the war is over and the world is capable of optimism again. This event I will accept as closure on the worst day of my life and the lives of my friends and family. I will reflect on how we got here and the costs we have incurred and I will remember this day not as the day I became hopeful, but the day that I sensed it was possible to hope in the future.
posted by epsilon at 10:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

I wonder if Obama and Bill Clinton have high dived yet.

Thanks for the mental imagery there, dude.

The speedos! The tiny, Presidential speedos!
posted by Sys Rq at 10:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

I can't wait for Trump's press conference tomorrow where he will be so proud of himself for having done this.
posted by juiceCake at 10:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Osama bin Laden Compound
posted by clearly at 10:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Oh gawd: "Today, the American people have seen justice," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.), whose Long Island district lost many in the 2001 attacks, said in a statement. "In 2001, President Bush said, 'We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.' President Bush deserves great credit for putting action behind those words. President Obama deserves equal credit for his resolve in this long war against al-Qaeda."

bush on bin laden, march 2002: "I truly am not that concerned about him"
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Part of me feels squicked about the chants of "USA!", but at the same time I was fairly far removed from the effects of 9/11 on a personal level so I'll try to keep from judging anyone for now.
posted by charred husk at 10:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Osama is nothing like Hitler, and the fact so many even contemplate that comparison really illustrates just how special a lot of Americans think they are.

He "traumatized" a nation? Come on, the US destroys nations. Whatever your feelings about this, making Osama into an evil, demigod bogeyman is silly, and trivialises the real damage and trauma wrought by the September 11 attacks, not to mention the other trauma that has resulted as a direct result of such caricatures.
posted by smoke at 10:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [33 favorites]

I know it was meant to be positive, but I remember when our nation's aspirations were going to the moon, not just putting a bullet in somebody's head.

When all that's left to celebrate is ugliness, an empire is truly done and over.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

I can't find it in me to rejoice over anyone's death, let alone cheer for a state hunting down a single man and killing him, largely, it seems, for the sake of optics.

Of all the bullshit in politics, this is not bullshit. Worldwide terrorist masterminds should be caught dead or alive. Pacifists should rejoice in the death of murderous assholes like Osama bin Laden.
posted by arveale at 10:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Huckabee statement: "Welcome to hell, bin Laden"
posted by cwhitfcd at 10:11 PM on May 1, 2011

Fucking crazyass twenty-first century we're all having, huh?

Heck, it's been a nutty weekend.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:11 PM on May 1, 2011

What a long ten years this has been.

Tell me about it. For us Michiganders, late '01 was already the start of the recession. Combine corporate screwups, the endless war, the dismal political climate & losses in my personal life ... Well, "May you live in interesting times" indeed.

So I have mixed feelings. My first reaction to this news was a primal "Good, rot in hell bin Laden."

But then I think of so much bad that the US has brought on itself because of this endless War on Terror.

And yet, I can only hope that we are turning a corner toward something better.
posted by NorthernLite at 10:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

This is terribly naive. What are you suggesting, a couple of NYPD officers could have waltzed in, Mirandized him, and escorted him to a waiting cruiser in handcuffs?

No, unfortunately Lennie Briscoe's dead.
posted by docgonzo at 10:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

I don't think we will ever see his body.

we will, of course - failing to show that would wind up the conspiracy kooks endlessly

and the comic book/genre fans
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

New York Times obituary is up, assuming it hasn't already been posted.
posted by Nomiconic at 10:13 PM on May 1, 2011

Remember back in 2008 when John McCain was telling us we should vote for him because the GOP had only allowed 9/11 to happen once?

Yeah, fuck him.
posted by bardic at 10:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

I'm surprised that anyone's surprised by the celebrating.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

All right, America! Score one for justice.

Now arrest Dick Cheney and all those investment bankers. You're on a roll!
posted by Kevin Street at 10:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

I know it was meant to be positive, but I remember when our nation's aspirations were going to the moon, not just putting a bullet in somebody's head.

When all that's left to celebrate is ugliness, an empire is truly done and over.

THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS
posted by wowbobwow at 10:14 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

I know it was meant to be positive, but I remember when our nation's aspirations were going to the moon, not just putting a bullet in somebody's head.

In fairness, "we choose to go to the Moon in that decade and do the other things, not because they were easy, but because they are hard, because that goal served to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, ... and one which we intended to win," because Space was yet another proxy battlefield in our Cold War with the Soviets.

We sent a bullet-shaped rocket to Mare Tranquillitatis so we wouldn't have to send a rocket to Moscow.
posted by orthogonality at 10:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [36 favorites]

Osama bin Laden did many terrible things and was directly responsible for the death of thousands of people. The world is better off with him dead.

To suggest that there was another way this could have ended or that the US did something wrong is naive and simply contrarian.

People have emotions and are not automatons following a set of specific behavioral rules dreamed up in Ideal Society 101 class. Celebrating the end to bin Laden's ability to harm others is perfectly reasonable.

Debating the fine points of exactly how he died to suggest that the US behaved inappropriately is offensive. There was no more obvious and clear enemy, posing a direct danger to the US, than Osama bin Laden.
posted by Argyle at 10:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [17 favorites]

Oof, the poor mefi servers. Hang in there, buddy!
posted by lilac girl at 10:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

According to sources within my Gmail inbox, my aunt is not only a closet wingnut but believes Obama intentionally timed the announcement of Osama's death in order to draw attention away from the tornado-ravaged South. This being despite the fact that Obama flew down on Air Force One for an official presidential visit and walked the streets less than five miles from her house just two days ago.

And yeah, claiming Obama implicitly admitted Osama was executed by using the word "after" is nuts, not least because if he wanted to cover things up that badly, he could easily have been more ambiguous about the exact timing of his death, if not outright lie about it. It's about as nonsensical as saying the U.S. evinces it's evil fascistic conspiracy through vexillology by knowingly adding gold fringe to the American flag.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Look at Obama's face when Seth Meyers made the joke about Bin Laden last night
posted by triggerfinger at 10:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [20 favorites]

"'In the end?' Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion

It was a compound with a 12-18' barbed wire fence and armed guards.

So ... you're basic gated community hereabouts.
posted by philip-random at 10:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

>You're parsing a sentence to tease out a meaning that is almost certainly not intended.

No, I'm just reading the words. I have no opinion on this, but that's what was said: 'after'.
posted by pompomtom at 10:17 PM on May 1, 2011

Just as a total afront to Osama... [NSFW]
posted by JoeXIII007 at 10:17 PM on May 1, 2011

On the Google map of Osama's compound (from link above), I got the following ad:

Jihadists, want to go home? Rewards for information on al-Qaeda

Crazyass indeed.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:18 PM on May 1, 2011

unknowing live tweeting of the raid in abbotabad
posted by garlic at 10:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [24 favorites]

"I don't know where Bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." - G.W. Bush, 3/13/02
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 10:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

Way too many comments to scan through to see if this has been suggested before, but perhaps Osama, sensing his capture was imminent, put a bullet in his own head...or one of his lackeys did? That would make more sense to me in light of the fact that Khalid was captured but not OBL.
posted by spicynuts at 10:19 PM on May 1, 2011

I guess this isn't the line for kicking his corpse huh? Well how about the line for hi-fives for every military dude from Obama on down to the gay just-joined up privates? If not, then it starts behind me. Good jobs ladies and gents!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I will not judge those who are celebrating. I will simply say that it is not consistent with my own ethical system and be satisfied that that is enough.

Although my ethical system was apparently fine with spending the evening on Twitter joking about the whole event, so I am in no position to put myself above anybody else.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

So I'm doing one of my favorite things, paging through ancient Google News archives, and it looks like when Hitler died the first reaction was incredulity and skepticism, and outright doubt. It was difficult to determine what the exact course of events was and to verify it. A New York Times story says "people here heard the news of Adolf Hitler's death last week without visible signs of either grief or rejoicing." The Pittsburgh Press said "Consequently there is little tendency to rejoice over the news of Hitler's death, just a general belief that the world is well rid of him...if he is really dead."

It makes sense. There was still plenty of war going on with Germany (though it was close to surrender) and Japan. There was rejoicing on V-E day, but a lot of sombre praying etc. as well. I have a copy of the Life Magazine from that week and it is fascinating and moving reading.
posted by Miko at 10:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

When all that's left to celebrate is ugliness, an empire is truly done and over.

Everyone finds their own celebration in a big event.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Hey Qaddafi. What's up? Not much here either. Soooo, about that desperate clinging to power thing? Had any second thoughts?
posted by Rock Steady at 10:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's rough, I don't know how to parse my feelings on this...on one hand I totally get the people who say "the murder of a murderer is still murder" and similar things, but on the other.....I feel surreal and relieved that the massive mental and emotional tangle that is "this thing where we look for Osama" and 9/11 has any sort of coda.

I've always been shocked at the emotions 9/11 pulls out of me, and I guess that's just not over yet.
posted by nile_red at 10:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I do speak English - albeit English English - rather well, and "killed after a firefight" I assure you ought to mean exactly that: the killing occurred after a firefight. You don't say somebody was killed 'after a car crash', or 'after a house fire'. How long after? Why wouldn't Obama just say "during" or "in"?!
I don't see this as any great 'conspiracy theory'; it's all a matter of degree and either way this was a dedicated assassination operation.
posted by Flashman at 10:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

@steve_huff
5 minutes ago

"We can find and kill Osama bin Laden, but we can't put a man back on the moon again?" ~ Some blazing asshole, somewhere.

Prescient.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

So can we rebuild the Twin Towers now?
posted by ambrosia at 10:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

murdered 3000 Americans.

You do know not everyone killed on september 11th was American, right?
posted by usagizero at 10:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

I feel like an alien tonight. The emotions I feel after finding out about this targeted killing are primarily shame, anger over our absurdly low collective ethical standards, and a bit of fear. People think this shit is a game of fucking Age of Empires -- we "won"!
posted by threeants at 10:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Everyone finds their own celebration in a big event.

Fantasies of holding up a dismembered head is one kind of celebration, certainly.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

I understand and I have the knowledge and the background and the experience to make the right judgments (to capture Bin Laden). Senator Obama does not…Obama doesn't know how -- how the world works nor how the military works.

^ McCain. Yeah.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Rather annoyed I've reached my favorites limit for today.
posted by contessa at 10:22 PM on May 1, 2011

mosarraf zaidi (whose tweet about seeing a low flying helicopter earlier in the day was linked above) re-tweets various info about situation in pakistan etc:

AP reports the US attack was 4 helicopters, one of which was downed by ground fire.
Pakistani official claims it was a joint operation; others say must have been US-only.
Pakistan policy blogger says the attacking US helicopters couldn't have gotten that far inside Pakistan without the Pakistani military approving it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The president didn't smile, but he looked pleased with his announcement.
posted by Cranberry at 10:23 PM on May 1, 2011

I still want trials -- real, fair trials -- for the Gitmo detainees; for the bastards who tortured them; and for the bastards on Wall Street who tanked our economy.

I am still worried that this incident will turn out to be not a raid by SEALs as has been said, but rather a freak car accident, and that we're having another Pat Tillman/Jessica Lynch rerun.

But the motherfucker's dead, and I'm glad.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Tin-foil hat wearers respond: Government had Osama bin Laden frozen for years

Obama’s announcement follows the release of a highly suspicious birth certificate last week. Both events represent psychological operations that possibly portend more significant events in the days ahead as the U.S. dollar continues to lose its reserve status, the economy fails to recover as promised, and wars expand in Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Obama’s propaganda stunt arrives as the Democrats kick off their leader’s presidential reelection bid against a number of Republicans contenders who have been highly critical of not only his perceived handling of the economy, but also his management of the manufactured war on terror.
posted by thescientificmethhead at 10:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Just got back from the [whatever's going on in front of the white house] in DC. Thoroughly creeped out.

That said, every news outlet under the sun was there. Pretty sure I was on Nigerian TV. NPR reporter was looking very lonely, and nobody wanted to talk to her. We chatted for a minute, but she didn't take a soundbite from me.

Lots of greek letters on the shirts of the attendees. A few Vuvuzelas too.

Wish I had something more profound to say, but I'm just creeped out. Guess it's time for some more thoughtful introspection. What does this mean about our already-absurdly-complicated relationship with Pakistan?
posted by schmod at 10:24 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Either way this was a dedicated assassination operation.

There was something about how painfully Obama tiptoed around the specifics of the issue that seemed to imply Osama was gonna be killed no matter what.
posted by Omon Ra at 10:25 PM on May 1, 2011

it's all a matter of degree and either way this was a dedicated assassination operation.

Oh, that's totally reasonable. Like when the other said I said "I'm going by the store for groceries," which in New Orleans is a very common expression, but everywhere else in the world means "I'm unleashing my murderous hell beast to extinguish mankind."
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:25 PM on May 1, 2011

Meanwhile ... over at 4chan: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Not Suitable [in a generalized sense]
posted by philip-random at 10:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

So I'm doing one of my favorite things, paging through ancient Google News archives, and it looks like when Hitler died the first reaction was incredulity and skepticism, and outright doubt.

Thanks, Miko. I had been looking for similar reports but I got sidetracked. And you are right, this makes sense since Hitler wasn't so much the problem as it was the Axis. At that time, everyone knew someone who was in danger of being hurt or killed by the Axis. While it was an important event, it wasn't really the important news everyone wanted to hear. Although V-E day did follow soon after.
posted by chemoboy at 10:26 PM on May 1, 2011

...but perhaps Osama, sensing his capture was imminent, put a bullet in his own head...or one of his lackeys did?

For what I've read of Osama, he was soldier and would not have been taken alive, nor would he have put a bullet in his own head. The only way he would have killed himself is if he was taking some of his enemies with him.

He was good, smart, dedicated soldier who fiercely believed in what he was doing. No way was he going to put a bullet in himself.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good riddance. The canary in the coal mine was when Afghani women were forced into burqas.
posted by brujita at 10:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

According to sources within my Gmail inbox, my aunt is not only a closet wingnut but believes Obama intentionally timed the announcement of Osama's death in order to draw attention away from the tornado-ravaged South.

Oh, I'll go you one better. The Southern distruction is actually important. My poor sweet cousin bless her heart posted on FB that she was sure Obama timed to announcement to draw attention away from Trump's "big moment" tonight on his TV show.
posted by Miko at 10:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

No, I'm just reading the words. I have no opinion on this, but that's what was said: 'after'.

google "killed after a shootout"

Words often have more than one meaning each.
posted by Flunkie at 10:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Bin Laden was living in a suburban mansion

It was a compound with a 12-18' barbed wire fence and armed guards.

My videogame experience has taught me that mansions are some of the hardest places to penetrate, since they can hold heaps of guards that come at you from all directions. No idea if his was that well-guarded though.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:27 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Just got back from the [whatever's going on in front of the white house] in DC. Thoroughly creeped out.

Yeah, I just saw a closeup outburst on Al Jazeera English. It looks not so much like celebration or recognition of a globally significant event as it does the spill-out from the bars at 1 AM.
posted by Miko at 10:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

My videogame experience has taught me that mansions are some of the hardest places to penetrate, since they can hold heaps of guards that come at you from all directions.

Please stop talking.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [37 favorites]

Under this President, American foreign policy, while flawed, is a darn sight better and more conducive to peace than it was under Kennedy. Those of you wishing for the glory days of the Bay of Pigs and imminent mutually-assured-destruction should bear that in mind.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:29 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Video of Seth Meyer's Bin Laden joke at the Correspondents' Dinner last night, plus Obama's reaction (@2:05, in case the fancy deep-link doesn't work)
posted by Rhaomi at 10:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

I wonder if the Navy Seals had to run forward a bit to trigger them?
posted by Flashman at 10:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

You don't say somebody was killed 'after a car crash', or 'after a house fire'.

In America, you do. Google "killed after a car crash" and you'll find the word "after" to be interchangeable with "in" or "during" in a lot of reports. It must be a subtle difference between our versions of English.
posted by chemoboy at 10:31 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Those of you wishing for the glory days of the Bay of Pigs and imminent mutually-assured-destruction should bear that in mind.

what
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:31 PM on May 1, 2011

It looks not so much like celebration or recognition of a globally significant event as it does the spill-out from the bars at 1 AM.

From what little I've seen/heard from the crowd on TV, it seems to be mostlly kids who are hoping to get out of final exams tomorrow...
posted by narwhal bacon at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I would now like to bring a lot of troops home, cut some defense programs and give the money to the VA and other supporting institutions to help vets transition to being a civilian.

Totally. I was just talking to my insurgent mates in Afghanistan, and they're all really bummed about bin Laden, and figure they won't go ahead with the summer surge after all. They're just going to go home to their families and lounge around in inflatable pools and let people vote in elections. They had some more 12 year old sucide bombers lined up, but they took their detonators away and they're sending them to Disneyland instead.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Not sure, but possibly a bit of clarity?

Twenty to 25 U.S. Navy Seals under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the CIA stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killed Bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was one of Osama Bin Laden's son, as was a woman reportedly used as a shield by one of the men. Other women and children were present in the compound, according to Pakistani officials, but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself did fire his weapon during the fight.
posted by nile_red at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I do speak English - albeit English English - rather well, and "killed after a firefight" I assure you ought to mean exactly that: the killing occurred after a firefight. You don't say somebody was killed 'after a car crash', or 'after a house fire'. How long after? Why wouldn't Obama just say "during" or "in"?!
I don't see this as any great 'conspiracy theory'; it's all a matter of degree and either way this was a dedicated assassination operation.

You seem more informed than every news network on earth.

The President explicitly mentioned capture in the speech. But you continue to parse words to make it seem wrong that a boastful mass murder died in a shoot-out. You have zero facts to support your position.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

"Abottabad is named after Major James Abott who founded the town in 1853. It is more than two hours away by road."

: D
posted by lemuring at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011

"Did the Allies celebrate the death of Hitler?"

You better fucking believe they did. I was out celebrating, so I missed the Prez's speech, but ... YES WE CAN!
posted by octobersurprise at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011

It looks not so much like celebration or recognition of a globally significant event as it does the spill-out from the bars at 1 AM.

Yeah. The first people that decide to come to the fence and sing The Star-Spangled Banner (a weird enough decision on its own), and the news media start putting them on TV, and then the next group sees them on TV and decides to go down themselves, and now we're off to the exponential races.

The time-span between "genuine expression of something, for good or ill" and "many observers glomming onto and co-opting that expression for a variety of reasons" gets smaller and smaller.
posted by penduluum at 10:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

I assure you ought to mean exactly that: the killing occurred after a firefight. You don't say somebody was killed 'after a car crash', or 'after a house fire'. How long after? Why wouldn't Obama just say "during" or "in"?!

When someone dies "after a long struggle with cancer", does that mean the cancer went away and then they got hit by a bus? No, it means they died of cancer.
posted by teraflop at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [31 favorites]

Now we know why Obama was too busy to dig up his birth certificate till a couple of days ago.

A lesson in priority setting for Trump.
posted by helmutdog at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Oh sweet Allah, please Al Jazeera English, please don't interview the hysterical teenagers in front of the White House…

…aww fuck.
posted by LMGM at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Holy shit, so many forums are crashing right now, and facebook has slowed to a crawl. For me, at any rate.

Only one that isn't slow for me is a local soccer forum, presumably because Osama Bin Laden never played for the Seattle Sounders FC.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wow, people on AJE seem to think "It's over". Somehow, I doubt Obama agrees. :(
posted by wierdo at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011

Blazecock Pileon: I'm talking about the moon-landing stuff like this. I reject the idea that America used to be wonderful and is now irredeemably decayed. America is America and its actions largely depend on its leaders.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

"My videogame experience has taught me that mansions are some of the hardest places to penetrate, since they can hold heaps of guards that come at you from all directions. No idea if his was that well-guarded though."

My CoD experience has taught me if you're in a helicopter you can probably kill a hundred guys no problem.
posted by lemuring at 10:34 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

At this moment, there are regiments of drunken college students wandering through the streets of my neighborhood singing The Star-Spangled Banner and chanting USA! USA! USA!
posted by mochapickle at 10:35 PM on May 1, 2011

You don't say somebody was killed 'after a car crash', or 'after a house fire'.

I would, actually. That soubds totally reasonable to me Raised in Illinois, for what it's worth.
posted by leahwrenn at 10:36 PM on May 1, 2011

"America, the execution of one of your enemies is not at all like winning the Super Bowl. Please restrain yourselves."

I don't think you understand America very well.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Debating the fine points of exactly how he died to suggest that the US behaved inappropriately is offensive

For my part, I mentioned the phrasing "after a firefight he was killed" because I want to know, not in order to stir shit. I am not remotely interested in bashing the US or saying this was a bad thing to do.

But I still want to know: how did it go down? What orders exactly did Obama give? What were the Special Forces guys supposed to do if a Pakistani military unit came after them (for invading Pakistan)? Capturing Bin Laden alive and bringing him out would have tremendous logistical difficulties and be followed by very complicated political and legal consequences; it's possible that those factors had an influence on the orders. (and it might be appropriate for them to.) I am not interested in assessing whether the US behaved appropriately at this point (just in figuring out what in fact happened) and I'm not looking to score points or propound conspiracy theories or anything.

After 9/11, I had a conversation with a colleague about what the US should do with Bin Laden if we could find him. (I was on the more pragmatic and less ethical side, and my colleague was horrified.) It's an interesting and extremely difficult problem, with IMO no clearcut best answer, and I want to know how they planned to handle it, and how they ended up handling it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Watching Al-Jazeera which has by far the best live coverage. A reporter is in front of the White House interviewing these kids -- really, they're mostly under 25. A marine vet told the reporter he was excited because with OBL dead, "the soldiers can come home."

Probably way too early to try and figure out the nation's mood, but it's nice to see that people in front of the White House aren't celebrating the death of OBL as much as they are the end of the Afghanistan war.

/fingers crossed
posted by bardic at 10:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

You better fucking believe they did. I was out celebrating, so I missed the Prez's speech, but ... YES WE CAN!

That picture is from V-J day. That moment signified the total end of World War II, and was not directly related to Hitler's death, which happened months before.
posted by Miko at 10:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Great news; let me know when they get Dick Chaney. Is he still hiding in an undisclosed location?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Timeline of Obama's decisions and preparation for the news release.
posted by LMGM at 10:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

For my part, I mentioned the phrasing "after a firefight he was killed" because I want to know, not in order to stir shit.

Seconded. I think it's a poor choice of words, as to my ears 'after' means 'after', but there you have it.
posted by pompomtom at 10:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's kinda freaky that a South Park episode which aired just four days ago ended with "we got him!".
posted by Rhomboid at 10:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh sweet Allah, please Al Jazeera English, please don't interview the hysterical teenagers in front of the White House…

That girl screamed so loud and long. Then she looked like she forgot what she was cheering about. Then she looked like she was about to pass out.

That's when I turned off the news for the evening.
posted by chemoboy at 10:39 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

since Hitler wasn't so much the problem as it was the Axis.

No. Bin Laden is far less of the problem than Hitler was. World War II, was, in one sense or another, born within the mind of Adolf Hitler in the spring and summer of 1919. By 1926, he had worked out his plan to seize Russia to make "Lebensraum" for German nationals.

Without a doubt, the Axis would not have existed without Hitler.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Alright, alright, if that's conventional American vernacular, I stand corrected, but to me it's a puzzling choice of words.
posted by Flashman at 10:40 PM on May 1, 2011

I'm pragmatic: were I making the raid decisions, "dead and unmutilated" would be my command.

OBL was a cancer cell. Executing him is just common sense.

The celebration thing is in poor taste.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ah, shit, that one didn't air four days ago, my bad. I recently re-watched s14 of South Park right before the s15 premiere so I had it mixed up in my head.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:41 PM on May 1, 2011

What an amazing feeling this evening, flying over the Hudson River, admiring the Manhattan skyline on an American Airlines flight, and hearing the captain announce that Osama bin Laden has been killed.
posted by BobbyVan at 10:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

I think it's a poor choice of words, as to my ears 'after' means 'after'

More accurately, you think it's a poor choice of words because to your ears, 'after' means what 'after' means to your ears.
posted by Flunkie at 10:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah at least one talking head on CNN said "the war on terror is over". I think most people are not as cynical, or maybe not as informed, as we think. Maybe they honestly believe that we are done. That we have been fighting 2 wars for 10 years to get OBL. It certainly started that way didn't it? We all remember what bush said, "dead or alive". Well we got the bad guy, the reason we invaded afganistan if maybe not the reason we invaded Iraq. For most people maybe this really is the end, and the end would certainly be worth celebrating.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't post here much, but I ended up at theblaze for some reason and found this:

"THE BIG PICKLE
Posted on May 1, 2011 at 11:04pm
What a publicity crock of sh@te!

I was watching Donald Trumps “Apprentice” and seconds before he was going to announce who was fired they cut in for this special bulletin.

Like it couldn’t wait ONE more minute? It had to interrupt Donald Trumps show at the most critical point?

F’n RUBBISH!

I hate Obongo even more now after this political cr@p tactic."

I just laughed and laughed and laughed. This guy must be a troll par excellence, otherwise I've lost my mind.
I guess if this is inappropriate or something moderate away.
posted by honeybunny at 10:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Without a doubt, the Axis would not have existed without Hitler.

It wouldn't, but knowing he was dead still did not represent an opportunity to stop fighting the war. That's why the rejoicing was constrained.
posted by Miko at 10:43 PM on May 1, 2011

present
posted by DaddyNewt at 10:43 PM on May 1, 2011

I reject the idea that America used to be wonderful and is now irredeemably decayed.

To the extent that we celebrate the violent slaughter of our enemies and wish for their dismembered bodies to be displayed publicly, maybe there's some decay. Just a little.

I don't know if that decay is irredeemable, but tonight, at least, we identify our character to the world by the class and dignity with which we citizens conduct ourselves in celebrating our country's Pyrrhic victory.

So far as I can tell, we're not doing ourselves many favors, and some rah-rah bullshit might feel good for a few minutes, but it doesn't help us deal with tomorrow's problems.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

"The celebration thing is in poor taste."

Watching the live video from the White House, no, young kids are celebrating the end of the Afghanistan war.

Watching the live video from ground zero, no, people are mourning the 3,000 dead.

So no, you're wrong.
posted by bardic at 10:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Google Earth: bin Laden compound.

Funny, but probably not the right location, given the reports that came in before the backstory was known.

However, I'm wondering whether this bit of social mapping might have provided an inadvertent bit of intel.
posted by holgate at 10:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Conservative Facebook friend actually did complain about Obama interrupting Trump's show.

To be clear, this complaint came after it was known why the interruption happened.
posted by Flunkie at 10:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Google Earth: bin Laden compound.

Seems to be in a district full of schools and medical clinics. Who would have thought it..
posted by Ahab at 10:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

At this moment, there are regiments of drunken college students wandering through the streets of my neighborhood singing The Star-Spangled Banner and chanting USA! USA! USA!

I'm often found drunkenly singing the Star-Spangled Banner and being an Ugly American but the fact that it took us 10 years to kill bin Laden isn't exactly filling me with pride.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:45 PM on May 1, 2011

Alright, alright, if that's conventional American vernacular, I stand corrected, but to me it's a puzzling choice of words.

So is your use of the word "pissed." I can fully agree with the new definition of trump I learned today though.
posted by chemoboy at 10:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'll be down by GZ tomorrow for work, I wish i could be down there now.
posted by vrakatar at 10:45 PM on May 1, 2011

young kids are celebrating the end of the Afghanistan war

I'm watching them and I'm not sure that's true. For one thing, the Afghanistan War has not ended.
posted by Miko at 10:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

From a reddit thread, where some guy was just outside the white house:

Heading off some potential questions: to my knowledge, I did not make it onto a camera, I am 18, dual citizenship USA and Thailand, Democrat. I'm in Washington for an internship on the Hill.
I got there at around 11:30, when there were just a few people around. Then it started swelling. Lots of college kids from GWU, lots of beer and cigarettes. Lot of people tried climbing the lightpost, and one person attached a US flag to it. A guy in full body america flag spandex and Spider-man showed up. Anything you want to ask me, go ahead.

Hehe.
posted by hellojed at 10:47 PM on May 1, 2011

Does someone have a link to the celebration/mourning in New York City?
posted by chemoboy at 10:47 PM on May 1, 2011

YouTube video of Obama's speech.

Warning. Graphic image of bin Laden dead. (? Not sure that image is actual)

Abbottobad picture gallery | about Abbottabad | Noting that where Osama bin Laden was living was surrounded by hospitals and clinics.

Death of Osama bin Laden on Wikipedia

Living in midtown Manhattan my neighbors and I feel anxious about the retribution factor.
posted by nickyskye at 10:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Without a doubt, the Axis would not have existed without Hitler.

It wouldn't, but knowing he was dead still did not represent an opportunity to stop fighting the war. That's why the rejoicing was constrained.

When Adolf Hitler died, there were literally many thousands of Soviet troops within 2000 feet of his position, and 200,000 Soviet troops within 10 miles of his position. All over but the shouting.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:48 PM on May 1, 2011

I'm super torn. I'm glad he's dead. I'm ashamed that I'm glad he's dead. I'm savagely gleeful that he met his end at the hands of soldiers from the nation he attacked. I mourn his death, because he was an infant at his mother's breast once, born innocent. I pray for his forgiveness, because that's how I roll, and he needs it. I pray for myself that I can actually mean it when I pray for his forgiveness, because really, that's how I'd like to roll but I fall short. I'm glad for the powerful symbol. I wish it was more actual than symbolic. I wish that tomorrow I could take a Diet Coke onto an airplane, or withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan. I'm proud that it happened on the watch of the first President I actually voted for, and I recognize that the vast, vast majority of the actual work was done by people who have been serving this country through many, many presidents. I'm unexpectedly emotional about the whole thing.

Proud, weird, uneasy day to be an American.
posted by KathrynT at 10:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [60 favorites]

I'm watching them and I'm not sure that's true. For one thing, the Afghanistan War has not ended.

Yes, but they think that killing bin Laden means we can go home.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:48 PM on May 1, 2011

All over but the shouting.

Not in the Pacific.
posted by Miko at 10:48 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Warning. Graphic image of bin Laden dead . (? Not sure that image is actual)

The image is not legit; TinEye shows a couple of hits for it posted last year.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:49 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Al Jazeera is reporting all US embassies have been put on high alert.
posted by bardic at 10:50 PM on May 1, 2011

For my part, I mentioned the phrasing "after a firefight he was killed" because I want to know, not in order to stir shit. I am not remotely interested in bashing the US or saying this was a bad thing to do.

Actually, I think you are simply trying to stir the shit.

Here's the latest report on how it went down.

Like any military mission, the rules of engagement would be spelled out clearly and in extreme detail in this case.

Perhaps you don't know many people that have served in the military in special forces. I have several friends that have. They are intelligent, thoughtful, and detail oriented people. The soldiers that carried out this mission are likely some of the most highly trained and experienced the US has. This was not a group of random infantry told to bust in and shoot everyone.

Expecting to have all the facts and details to answer all possible within hours of the announcement is not reasonable.

But of course, don't let lack of actual information stop you from jumping to conclusions. It wouldn't be MeFi if people didn't start hyperventilating on their stack of soapboxes within minutes of news occuring.
posted by Argyle at 10:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

All over but the shouting.

Yeah, not in Japan, where the US was facing the prospect of much greater resistance than they encountered in Europe.
posted by furiousthought at 10:50 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's a nice moral boost, but I highly doubt NATO–ISAF is pulling out of Afghanistan any time soon.
posted by Harpocrates at 10:50 PM on May 1, 2011

One more reminder of the power of the Internet and potential for datamining. Twitter user @ReallyVirtual, from Abbottabad, live-tweeted the raid without knowing what it was.
posted by mark242 at 10:51 PM on May 1, 2011 [15 favorites]

posted by Brandon Blatcher He was (a) good, smart, dedicated soldier who fiercely believed in what he was doing.

song for Obama (c/o No Means No)
posted by philip-random at 10:51 PM on May 1, 2011

Yeah, I just saw a closeup outburst on Al Jazeera English. It looks not so much like celebration or recognition of a globally significant event as it does the spill-out from the bars at 1 AM.

Mind you, people gathered in thoughtful, quiet introspection make for poor television. It was pretty obvious that the camerapeople were out to get very certain shots, and were on occasion even egging the crowd on (ahem, Fox and Reuters!)

And, I mean.... how can you not film a guy on stilts?

Still, it was an interesting reminder that every media bureau on the planet has an outlet in DC.

Also interesting to note that Capital Bikeshare hit near-rush-hour levels of usage (~15% utilization). Saw lots of folks on those red bikes, since Metro closes at midnight.
posted by schmod at 10:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

That moment signified the total end of World War II, and was not directly related to Hitler's death, which happened months before.

There's a recording of BBC/British Army personnel replacing Lord Haw Haw on German radio, which suggests that if the Allies weren't celebrating Hitler's death, they weren't too unhappy about it. Anyway, I don't wish to split hairs; if there was never an official policy celebrating Hitler's death, there were never too many people who needed an official policy.

I expect there will be many boorish people tonight who could probably express their delight in more diplomatic ways, but for tonight I think I can overlook that.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, pulling out of Afghanistan is wishful thinking to some extent but it also gives Obama cover to declare victory and bring the troops home. "Mission Accomplished" and all that.

We'll see if we got the president we thought we voted for or not.
posted by bardic at 10:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm watching them and I'm not sure that's true. For one thing, the Afghanistan War has not ended.

Yes, but they think that killing bin Laden means we can go home.

Politically it probably makes removing troops from Afghanistan possible, even if practical reasonss for remaining there remain unchanged.
posted by Artw at 10:52 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

All over but the shouting.

Not in the Pacific.

With the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan had no strategic options. You bet it was all over.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:53 PM on May 1, 2011

I reject the idea that America used to be wonderful and is now irredeemably decayed.

I sort of liked the time when it was unthinkable for the US to torture people and imprison them indefinitely.

The US has always done questionable things, but they were always done in secret, or at least they were never justified by fuzzy language like "enhanced interrogations". Yes, Reagan might have funded death squads in South America, but nobody praised him for it when the truth became known.

People around the world used to admire the US because at least there were generous and noble principles which underpinned the country. The Declaration of independence, for example, is an amazing document, with incredible powerful statements, even if it was drafted by slaveowners. The broad principle was more important than the individual fact. Now, everything seems to be decaying under political sophistry used to justify the unjustifiable.
posted by Omon Ra at 10:55 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

Michael Moore (stitched together from Twitter): What I wrote last Oct: "Here's what I know: Osama bin Laden is a multi-millionaire – and if there's one thing I've learned about the rich is that they don't live in caves for 9 years. Bin Laden is either dead or hiding out in a place where his money protects him."– 10/7/10

Check out how OBL's compound was so near to hospitals, college, the movie theater, etc.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

The dudes whooping and chanting U-S-A are kinda like a Randy Quaid character from a National Lampoon movie.
posted by strange chain at 10:56 PM on May 1, 2011

With the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan had no strategic options. You bet it was all over.

Paul Fussell explained his fear that his unit, which had survived the fighting in Europe, would be shot to pieces conquering Japan, in his book Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.
posted by orthogonality at 10:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

The local Fox affiliate in NYC is the only site I could find with a working live video link. There is no audio to tell me what I'm looking at.

Anything else? Bueller?
posted by chemoboy at 10:56 PM on May 1, 2011

All over but the shouting.

Yeah, not in Japan, where the US was facing the prospect of much greater resistance than they encountered in Europe.

May I suggest you read The Invasion of Japan by Professor Lee Ray Skates.<
posted by Ironmouth at 10:57 PM on May 1, 2011

In a few weeks or months, when the ripples from this have dissipated a bit, I hope a perceptive and sensitive journalist/academic combs through threads like this one and provides an analysis about the debate about appropriate affect (or the lack of any appropriate affect) in response to this event. A lot of people are registering ambivalence/confusion on here, several are jubilant, several are disgusted, a few are despairing, many are still anxious, a few are skeptical, and many of us are worried about how other people's public displays of affect will impact how this event will be remembered. I'm certainly not about to make an argument for what the right emotional reaction to this should be (although I'm admittedly unsettled by the unbridled/drunken nationalism throbbing in front of the White House), but I think this debate will be fascinating to scholars of political affect, trauma, etc.
posted by LMGM at 10:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

I think "don't organize terrorism attacks against us: we'll hunt you down and execute you" is a perfectly fine message to send to the world.

The slippery slope is pretty well gritted up at the "killing bin Laden" end of the ramp.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Oh good we're on this tangent cause this this is totally just like world war two and looks and acts just like it in every way.
posted by The Whelk at 10:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

chemoboy, try AlJazeera's English feed on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish

The live feed is down the page a bit.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:57 PM on May 1, 2011

Some comments on Twitter that CNN is reporting that key intel for the operation came from Guantanamo Bay detainees. Any confirmation of this?
posted by BobbyVan at 10:58 PM on May 1, 2011

Hehe -- we've got LOLCATS on the case.
posted by bardic at 10:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Lovecraft in Brooklyn: "I'm often found drunkenly singing the Star-Spangled Banner and being an Ugly American but the fact that it took us 10 years to kill bin Laden isn't exactly filling me with pride."

If you can sing it, that means you aren't drunk (according to some).
posted by Guy Smiley at 10:59 PM on May 1, 2011

LONDON - The couple, walking hand in hand on the grounds of Buckingham Palace, boarded a helicopter Saturday morning to a secret location, then issued a statement asking to be left alone. He will return to military duty as a helicopter rescue pilot after the holiday weekend.

ISLAMABAD - Osama bin Laden was killed in a helicopter raid on a mansion in an area north of the Pakistani capital, U.S. and Pakistani officials said Monday.

Until I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume that Prince William just pulled off the most awesome wedding and honeymoon combination known to mankind.
posted by rh at 10:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [100 favorites]

Personal opinion: the slippery slope here isn't in the killing of Osama Bin Laden (though it sure ought to be). Its in our reactions today.

10 years of fighting, 4000+ troops dead, tens of thousands of civilians dead, and centuries of civil liberties rolled back all to cut off the hydra's head. Once.

And then we all go around shouting BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND SKULLS FOR HIS THRONE just to show the world how much we really love vengeance.
posted by Slackermagee at 11:00 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Sigh. Unfortunately, the other great evil in our world, Fox News, is still alive and kicking.
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:00 PM on May 1, 2011

If it was that lady who was on twenty minutes ago it seemed more like making shit up than reporting as such.
posted by Artw at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011

Great, LMGM, now I'm on record saying it's "pretty fuckin' awesome." I think the celebrating is understandable but unfortunate. I know my immediate thought was that this would enable a draw down of forces in Afghanistan and if I'm not drunk. Probably not going to happen, but there's at least a chance for a radical change in the way we're prosecuting the War on Terror (ugh).

Would have preferred he was captured alive, but I never expected that.
posted by polyhedron at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011

Actually, I think you are simply trying to stir the shit.

There is no reason to say this.

Like any military mission, the rules of engagement would be spelled out clearly and in extreme detail in this case. [...] people that have served in the military in special forces. [...] are intelligent, thoughtful, and detail oriented people.

I absolutely believe this. I'm sure the rules of engagement were very clear, and I'm sure there was high professionalism and planning and care.

I'm curious about it. That is not shit-stirring. I know that we'll have to wait to get more details; I'm trying to glean what I can from reports that are coming out now. That's not soapboxing.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Paul Fussell explained his fear that his unit, which had survived the fighting in Europe, would be shot to pieces conquering Japan, in his book Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.

You need to read the Coronet and Olympic invasion plans and the Japanese defense plans. The dropping of the A-bomb was unnecessary.
<
posted by Ironmouth at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

It is at this night that any more "Obama cannot do X, he has too little political capital to spare" ceases to be a valid excuse.
posted by adipocere at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

To the extent that we celebrate the violent slaughter of our enemies and wish for their dismembered bodies to be displayed publicly, maybe there's some decay. Just a little.

Decay from what? What mystical era in American history are you referring to? The Revolutionary War when we killed people by tarring and feathering? Or lynched them? Or fired on the lifeboats?

America treats our enemies now better than we ever have in our history. Compare the precision bombing that mistakenly kills a few innocents to the firebombing of Dresden.

I must have missed the countries that live up to your expectation of how to behave during war.

You might not like American foreign policy, there's several parts of it I dislike, but to conflate that with the ideas that Americans today are worse than Americans of the past is simply not supported.

Americans today are more tolerant and understanding than at any other time in our history. We still have a very long way to go to improve our society, but to say we are going backwards is something I vehemently disagree with.
posted by Argyle at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [36 favorites]

And then we all go around shouting BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND SKULLS FOR HIS THRONE just to show the world how much we really love vengeance.

Well, I wasn't before, but that's pretty catchy.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

And down to the right. Let's try this again:

AlJazeera English on Youtube, both livestream and clips.

See also: AlJazeera's English homepage, and their main streaming English feed page.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:01 PM on May 1, 2011

This just in: Osama Bin Laden is still dead.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's great knowing that this is one moment that won't be soured by the same tired old snippy partisan bickering, right? ...Right? Hello?
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 11:02 PM on May 1, 2011

The reviews are in!
posted by ColdChef at 11:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

For those saying that the 'frat boys' are giving off a bad image let me give you a little perspective. I am 24 years old, I was 14 when September 11th attacks happened. Being 14 and born in 1986 I wasn't alive for the Korean War or the Vietnam War. My generation didn't know what Desert Storm was all about. We were kids and we lived peaceful life, everything was amazing for us, people in the country were happy the economy was doing well, the only worry anybody had was Y2K. Then all of a sudden one day out of the blue a group of people flew 2 planes into the World Trade Center and killed 2974 people.

I can't speak for everybody from my generation but this attack shocked and changed all of my friends and I, we had no idea that people hated us on this scale and wanted to kill innocent people. To me at least, Osama bin Laden was the worst man ever. That was 10 years ago and since then we have grown up with this war going on in Afghanistan and have watched our friends go over there and server and man die. I can't remember what its like to not hear about the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq every day.

While talking with friends tonight, we were talking about how people who we went to with in high school were serving in Afghanistan and how our generation contributed and made an impact on this war. So far this is the moment when we can come together in celebrate something and be proud for our country and accomplishing something as a country. I hope this gives a little perspective so you don't assume that these are 'stupid frat boys' out to party, celebrate his death and make the country look bad.
posted by lilkeith07 at 11:02 PM on May 1, 2011 [90 favorites]

With the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan had no strategic options. You bet it was all over.

My point was, sure from a theoretical and ahistorical point of view we can comfortably say that in May 1944 the war was on its way to ending, but for people here at home worried about their loved ones in harm's way, it was by no means over, and a lot more people were going to die before peace was declared. A celebration like this would have been considered premature. V-E day was widely celebrated but even as it was being celebrated there was still the awareness that Japan needed to be defeated, and recall that most Americans had absolutely no idea there was going to be an atomic bomb to help out, so they expected a long grueling air and land war with plenty of atrocity and slaughter in the Pacific, just like they'd been experiencing all along. IN the "redeployment" it was thought It was a step along the path but there were many "harsh facts " You can find many articles describing how much longer the way might go on, the potential strategy, deployments, etc. In other words, everyone knew the war was not over yet, even if they were confident enough of ultimate victory. From today's vantage point it looks like a done deal, but reading daily news reports from the time period makes clear that a lot of anxiety and questions remained well after V-E day.
posted by Miko at 11:03 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Some comments on Twitter that CNN is reporting that key intel for the operation came from Guantanamo Bay detainees. Any confirmation of

Wait, the guys who were captured in 2002 (many of them innocent shepherds turned in because we were paying reward money for any warm body) knew where Osama was in 2011?

Really, Osama knew that guys who knew where he was living had been in custody, and tortured, for years and yet he stayed a sitting duck in that same place? Really?

None of this intel came form Guantanamo; that's just a line of BS brought to you by those whose interests are served in keeping Guantanamo open.
posted by orthogonality at 11:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [31 favorites]

America treats our enemies now better than we ever have in our history.

We're on record for torturing our captives, even if the goalposts keep shifting on the language. You can't unring that bell.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

anger over our absurdly low collective ethical standards, and a bit of fear. People think this shit is a game of fucking Age of Empires -- we "won"!

Millions of Americans are pretty stupid yes. We got 2 poll results -- in 2000 the number of actively stupid people came in at 50,456,002 plus an unknown number of the 140,000 non-Gore voters in Fl who wish they could have their vote back now.

You just gotta expect a very broad range of reactions in this -- good, bad, ugly.
posted by mokuba at 11:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best tweet so far: "FOX NEWS' TAKE: "African American Male in Washington Confesses to Murder of Elderly Man.""
posted by bardic at 11:05 PM on May 1, 2011 [40 favorites]

I'm kind of surprised that people think it's totally cool that Navy Seals stormed in to kill Osama Bin Laden, and did so in the course of some sort of gun battle, and did so, (and I don't disagree!) but on the other hand are totally indignant at the suggestion that the man might have been 'executed'.
What exactly is the difference? It certainly wouldn't be without precedent. The SAS executed all of the terrorists who had taken over the Iranian Embassy in 1981, the Russians did the same to the Chechens in the Beslan school in 2004 and in the Moscow theatre a few years ago.
posted by Flashman at 11:06 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fuck me, seriously?
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

For his next trick, Obama will show up with Hurricane Katrina trussed up in the back of his Bamobile and send her to jail for 200 years. Nevertheless, concerned internet haters complain that he should really be punishing the oil companies that caused Global Warming. Nonplussed, he gives up and lets Cancer escape on a snowmobile.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:07 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

celebrate something and be proud for our country and accomplishing something as a country

Sigh. I feel like America just got a diploma from one of those diploma mills that offer degrees for money; a very impressive piece of paper that says: In recognition of executing a bad guy.
posted by Omon Ra at 11:08 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"The dropping of the A-bomb was unnecessary."

I disagree. As mentioned, by definition the US didn't know the full story of the Japanese defense situation.

And if it was unnecessary to use against Japan, it arguably precluded an armed conflict with the Soviet Union.
posted by bardic at 11:09 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

So far this is the moment when we can come together in celebrate something and be proud for our country and accomplishing something as a country. I hope this gives a little perspective so you don't assume that these are 'stupid frat boys' out to party, celebrate his death and make the country look bad.

I understand the sense of celebration. I just don't share it. I'm glad that Obama suddenly seems to be NOT a lame duck ... and that's about it. Violence just isn't a solution. It's a tactic, no question, and one I've resorted to far too often. But, in the long run, I don't see it leading to anything but more permutations of the same.

All You Need Is Love. easy to say ...
posted by philip-random at 11:09 PM on May 1, 2011

And then we all go around shouting BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND SKULLS FOR HIS THRONE just to show the world how much we really love vengeance.

Not all of us are doing this. This is the kind of over-generalization that leads to not being able to understand complicated things.
posted by mokuba at 11:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

The dropping of the A-bomb was unnecessary.

Yes, but the soldiers on the ground in Europe didn't think that. And that wasn't your original argument, so let's not digress.

Your original argument was that Japan's surrender was inevitable once Germany fell -- and that that was obvious on the ground. Yes to the first (depending on how long drawn out "inevitable" can be made to be), emphatically no to the second, at least if we trust the contemporary reports of the men who were there, over your ex post facto analysis.
posted by orthogonality at 11:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Guardian obit
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:10 PM on May 1, 2011

"Heh, my parents are on a cruise to Israel right now. Kind of hoping the state department just tells them to stay on the boat, but this means a lot to them."

The state department isn't forcing anyone to stay on a boat, but I just got an embassy alert email saying:

"The U.S. Department of State alerts U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad to the enhanced potential for anti-American violence following recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan. Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where recent events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations. U.S. citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times. This Travel Alert expires August 1, 2011. "
posted by Bugbread at 11:10 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

"FOX NEWS' TAKE: "African American Male in Washington Confesses to Murder of Elderly Man."

Do you think FOX would use a phrase like "African American"? I don't.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:11 PM on May 1, 2011

Sky News / Al Jazeera English: Pakistani media show pictures of what they claim is Osama bin Laden's body
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:11 PM on May 1, 2011

You need to read the Coronet and Olympic invasion plans and the Japanese defense plans. The dropping of the A-bomb was unnecessary.

But this tangent is about how the US was or was not in the mood to celebrate the end of the war when Hitler died. At that point, the US public did not know that the use of the A-bomb was imminent, they were not privy to the invasion plans of the US and Japan, and while victory was assured – victory was assured well before that – the cost certainly wasn't, and the US was yet to take Okinawa. The prospect the US people faced, as far as they knew, was months of bloody fighting against a fearless enemy that would fight to the death. That's not a point where you want to start celebrating just yet.
posted by furiousthought at 11:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

The joke from the clip rhaome just posted, about cspan being the 'channel of screens of chairs waiting for people', and everyone laughed, I like to think that President Obama made it clear that real change takes place as punctuated equilibrium, slowly, but fast once it's in the tubes (cus they're creaking).

And none of the punditry, nor scrolling text, nor b-roll monkey bars, machine guns and stock OBL footage could change that the major networks were just that today. The President goes home, a solitary figure, just like any other night, there is quiet for a moment, and the field is set for the resumption of the circus. But tonight, tonight the 24 hour circuses were exactly what cspan is, the slow game, invested with length, and reality based programming. Thank you socialized information sources for always being like that, the players in that fine profession the institution of journalism, could learn much from you.

I am saddened to see gloating, or people behaving like my worst odds.
Proud to see the officials being respectful of the body. It actually does take a powerful fighter to be tasteful about vanquished foes.
He was a bad man. He hurt all 'sides' of the world for certain.
posted by infinite intimation at 11:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

The reviews are in!

Kurt ‎ - May 2, 2011
Looks like a typical Bluth Company house.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:11 PM on May 1, 2011 [20 favorites]

"We're on record for torturing our captives, even if the goalposts keep shifting on the language. You can't unring that bell."

No, but you can go forward and promise to never do it again. We all need to admit our mistakes, punish the guilty and move on. Hopefully that's what the death of Osama will become: an endpoint to the dark years and moral decay of the oughts, and the start of something better.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:12 PM on May 1, 2011 [36 favorites]

This thread is moving so FAST.
posted by nile_red at 11:13 PM on May 1, 2011

CBS News: Bin Laden's body taken to Bagram Airfield
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:13 PM on May 1, 2011

Best tweet so far: "FOX NEWS' TAKE: "African American Male in Washington Confesses to Murder of Elderly Man.""

i've already seen the call to take away obama's nobel because he ordered the murder of an invalid.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Omon Ra, It's more like something that we have great relief we finally managed, since there is this well-known Hollywood version of US invincibility where we can find people by commandeering satellites, see through walls with our night vision goggles, and snipe the guy through brick and concrete, so why hadn't we done that already?

I remember back when some hostages were located in Beirut and rescued and a pre-FOX-era right-wing war nerd confidently said "They knew exactly where those guys were the whole time -- they just waited until the right moment." I see.
posted by dhartung at 11:13 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bah. Obama's just trying to deflect attention from the birther controversy.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:14 PM on May 1, 2011

Some comments on Twitter that CNN is reporting that key intel for the operation came from Guantanamo Bay detainees. Any confirmation of this?

I just found this quote from a National Journal report, that seems to verify -- in part -- the rumored CNN report above.

In September 2010, the CIA presented Obama with a set of assessments that indicated bin Laden could be hiding in a compound in northwest Pakistan. Starting in mid-March, the president convened at least nine National Security Council meetings to discuss the intelligence suggesting bin Laden may be hiding out virtually in plain sight.

The CIA developed their theory through leads from individuals in bin Laden’s inner circle and other captured fighters following Sept. 11. Intelligence officials were repeatedly told about one courier working for bin Laden, as someone that America’s Most Wanted Man deeply trusted.

The detainees provided U.S. officials the courier’s nickname, and identified him as protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al Libbi, once al-Qaida’s third highest ranking official. (He was captured in 2005).

posted by BobbyVan at 11:15 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's not often I high five my wife over breakfast after finding out that a human being has died.
posted by MighstAllCruckingFighty at 11:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

We're on record for torturing our captives, even if the goalposts keep shifting on the language. You can't unring that bell.

Again, in what mystical era did this not occur? Are you suggesting that torture did not occur before 9/11? The fact that the topic being discussed openly and actively debated is a huge step forward.

I get that you don't like what's going on today, and I probably agree with several of your concerns. But I think you are making a mistake to say that America is getting worse.

I stand by my position that America continues to improve, obviously not at the rate we might all like, but nonetheless, it's improving in many tangible ways. 50 years ago, I could not have married my wife due to miscegenation laws. My children's schools are not segregated. My military in voluntary, not compulsory. I could go on, but hopefully you get my point.
posted by Argyle at 11:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

at least if we trust the contemporary reports of the men who were there, over your ex post facto analysis.

The US Army told Truman the invasion of Japan would cost 25,000 casualties. Before the bomb was dropped. These are well, well-documented facts. Ex post facto shit. That was the data given to Truman before the bomb was dropped. Shit aint even classified. This is reality, not made up.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:16 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Six months after 9/11, George W. Bush was "truly not concerned about bin Laden."
posted by bardic at 11:17 PM on May 1, 2011

And then we all go around shouting BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND SKULLS FOR HIS THRONE just to show the world how much we really love vengeance.

I thought we were shouting that because Nurgle doesn't have a catchy slogan.
posted by Bugbread at 11:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

I favorited Kevin Street's comment. I hope you'll favorite it too.

I don't believe it'll happen, but I favorited it.
posted by orthogonality at 11:17 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bah. Obama's just trying to deflect attention from the birther controversy.

funnier considering that when clinton, while president, used to talk about the pending threat of terrorism and osama bin laden, and republicans and some of the press accused him of just trying to deflect attention from his own scandals.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:18 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Thanks Bugbread. It's a complicated situation but my dad doesn't take advice well and this is literally my mom's last opportunity to travel abroad so they'll probably risk it. Oh well, I was already stressed out.
posted by polyhedron at 11:18 PM on May 1, 2011

Two weeks later, he was on his way home. "You exist because of the a-bomb." He said that to me more than once.

He was probably wrong. In hindsight, the Potsdam Declaration could have been massaged a bit better to get the Japanese to sign off on surrender.

The center of the Japanese bargaining position was self-disarmement, no allied occupation, and no allied criminal trials, but if we had been a bit more clear about the future status of the Emperor, we could have probably gotten the other side to lay down their rifles.

Again, this is in hindsight. The Germans fought the Russians to the last bullet just about, and I don't fault Truman et al for not expecting any less from the Japanese.
posted by mokuba at 11:18 PM on May 1, 2011

My most profound hope is that in some way this will serve to recalibrate the U.S. political landscape of rabid, frothing, self-destructive, all-consuming hate that has dominated the last 10 years.

Perhaps this is just foolish idea... but I've been feeling that nothing short of a truly massive large-scale U.S. natural disaster – or perhaps an attack by extraterrestrials – could prompt people to stop for one moment, take a breath, and decide they feel that they are better served by mostly playing on the same team instead of perpetrating the daily grinding, mindless, mechanical dismantling of every aspect of U.S. strength, prosperity, and freedom. Is this big enough news to reboot the process at all? My inner realist says "no," but I'm turning her off for a few hours anyway and enjoying my fantasy.
posted by taz at 11:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

That Google Maps location isn't legit, is it? Seems so very central, plus being terribly conveniently surrounded by hospitals and schools, etc.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:19 PM on May 1, 2011

Six months after 9/11, George W. Bush was "truly not concerned about bin Laden."

To give the devil his due: I've been seeing a lot people call the death of Osama a purely symbolic victory, that it doesn't really change much, and that OBL wasn't the guy who planned 9/11 anyhow.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:19 PM on May 1, 2011

A dad brought a flag and a photo of his dead son to the White House. "He's been vindicated."

I think the spontaneous gatherings in DC and New York deserve a lot more credit and sympathy than the "frat boy" smear would warrant.
posted by bardic at 11:19 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

Let's not let this detract from the Obama administration's other recent accomplishment: Incorporating ODB's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" into the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

And getting it stuck in my head all day
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [7 favorites]

Bah. Obama's just trying to deflect attention from the birther controversy.

Orly Taitz is actually saying that. It's impossible to satire these people.
posted by scalefree at 11:20 PM on May 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

then we all go around shouting BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND SKULLS FOR HIS THRONE

No. No. No. It's BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MY LORD ARIOCH!!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:21 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

No Justice, No Peace.
Know Justice, Know Peace.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:22 PM on May 1, 2011

The US Army told Truman the invasion of Japan would cost 25,000 casualties.

? We took ~80,000 casualties in the Battle of Okinawa. You need to re-check your history by expanding your reading I think, Ironmouth.
posted by mokuba at 11:22 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

That Google Maps location isn't legit, is it? Seems so very central, plus being terribly conveniently surrounded by hospitals and schools, etc.

Everything I've read says it is. It's a rich suburban neighborhood mostly populated by retired military officers.
posted by scalefree at 11:22 PM on May 1, 2011

Again, in what mystical era did this not occur? Are you suggesting that torture did not occur before 9/11?

No, it just wasn't condoned by the general populace or hidden away in jargon.

I'm cribbing here from Zizek, but maybe the real horror about America's torture is that, even when Americans found out that we were torturing people, the public didn't care. There used to be this tact in play, that we wouldn't talk about the torture America does, that it only happened off-site and/or in "ticking bomb" situations to Really Bad People, but after the façade comes down, after we see how common and uselessly torture was applied to people who didn't deserve it, we saw how maybe that tact was never really necessary.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:23 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

That Google Maps location isn't legit, is it? Seems so very central, plus being terribly conveniently surrounded by hospitals and schools, etc.
Everything I've read says it is. It's a rich suburban neighborhood mostly populated by retired military officers.

Which just makes this all the more uncomfortable for Pakistan. There's a lot of explaining to do about that.
posted by LMGM at 11:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

But I think you are making a mistake to say that America is getting worse.

We're in a country where — since 9/11 — citizens sat by passively while the PATRIOT Act gets signed in, American Muslims are Othered by an increasingly popular fascist political movement (one that does the same thing to a sitting President), stateless captives get taken to the off-shore equivalent of a concentration camp, others get "disappeared" by past and sitting Presidents who exercise "extraordinary rendition" — and when we finally have a chance to make a truly symbolic break with the ugliness of the last ten years, the best we seem to manage is to celebrate Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert-style.

The mistake isn't to say that America is getting worse. The mistake is to ignore how bad it is now and how much worse it will get.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [13 favorites]

@ReallyVirtual Sohaib Athar (an IT guy who's in Abbottobad) on Twitter, where the helicopter crash happened just north of the Osama Bin Laden compound

Al Jazeera live | the million dollar mansion in Abbottobad considered to have been built specifically for OBL five years ago. In the raid on the compound 3 other men killed and 2 or 3 other women.

Al Jazeera Twitter stream

Via NYTJim on Twitter ABC's @jonkarl says "informed source" told him US intends to bury Bin Laden at sea. http://abcn.ws/mSWQuK (via @blakehounshell)

posted by nickyskye at 11:25 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

I think the horrifying thing about the past decade (well, one of the many horrifying things) is the defense of state-sanctioned torture. In the past, it was at least illegal in the US.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [8 favorites]

Would you find "the suspect was killed after an exchange of gunfire with police" equally puzzling? It's certainly somewhat ambiguous, but I don't see any reason to lean towards any one interpretation. Not sure if it's a USain thing or not.

Ok, one more shot at this. (I realize this is a very small point, and honestly, not wanting a fight.)

The line in the speech is:
"After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

The examples given upthread are slightly different, using passive voice:
After a shootout the suspect was killed by police.

I think it's the active voice construction (with the action coming in the second clause: "after x, they killed") that makes it sound like two separate events - the firefight and the killing. So it's more like:
After a shootout, the police killed the suspect.

(I don't know if that makes much of a difference. I certainly see the interpretation of the phrasing is ambiguous between "as a result of a firefight, they killed him" and "subsequent to a firefight, they killed him".)
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:26 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Violence is not the solution. But it can be a solution. OBL problem: solved. Ding! Next problem in line, please!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:28 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Mind you, people gathered in thoughtful, quiet introspection make for poor television.

Somehow throwing the spotlight on the barbaric reactions of a few seems it might be motivated by more than just 'good television'. What the hell is going on with the media, anyway? Even BBC and AJE are partying. Are there *any* intelligent lifeforms in media?
posted by Surfurrus at 11:28 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

That Google Maps location isn't legit, is it? Seems so very central, plus being terribly conveniently surrounded by hospitals and schools, etc.

If you are a bad guy, it makes sense to put your villainy lair next to a lot of civilian stuff that your enemies won't want to bomb.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:28 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

This one? It's what you get for googling "Abbottabad" itself...
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:28 PM on May 1, 2011

Fucking hell, I'm guessing the ISI is collectively shitting it's pants right now.
posted by fido~depravo at 11:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

...Right by the playground, the women and children's hospital, the nerdy graduate students and LADY GARDEN PARK.

Those yanqui pigs better not have damaged the lady garden, that's all I'm saying.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

What a week: birth certificate, wedding certificate, death certificate.
posted by nickyskye at 11:30 PM on May 1, 2011 [56 favorites]

nickyskye not to mention near sainthood
posted by Omon Ra at 11:32 PM on May 1, 2011

the lady garden,

good name for some kind of band
posted by philip-random at 11:32 PM on May 1, 2011

no more mayday for you commies only VT Day now
posted by klangklangston at 11:32 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing has me confused. Most of the earlier reports say he was killed a week ago but the latest evidence, for instance the Twitter guy, says it happened about 10 hours ago. The most likely explanation is confusion in the earlier reports but it's a discrepancy that needs resolving & explanation.

In the hours after a major announcement like this, tons of reports go out that state all sorts of things, some true, some rumor, some things people pulled out of the air. Its important to remember that the reality of the situation won't become clear until later - if it ever does at all. Trying to reconcile different news stories from different people with different agendas will just give you a headache.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I'm guessing the ISI is collectively shitting it's pants right now"

Eh, they must have been in on it. The political pressure for hiding OBL was getting to be too much. Either that, or Obama sweetened the pot with some hard cash and/or some shiny new military jets.
posted by bardic at 11:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

There used to be this tact in play, that we wouldn't talk about the torture America does, that it only happened off-site and/or in "ticking bomb" situations to Really Bad People, but after the façade comes down, after we see how common and uselessly torture was applied to people who didn't deserve it, we saw how maybe that tact was never really necessary.

Yeah, that's true and it's not. A few years ago I'd have written exactly what you did.

But in light of our "torture renaissance", I thought about it and -- we have a long history of torture. Every lynching of every black man (and some non-blacks too) was proceeded by torture and maiming, usually in front of an excited approving crowd of spectators including children.

Slavery, and later Jim Crow, were both maintained with whip and torture. Torture wasn't just ubiquitous, it was employed not just to "protect national security" but as a common tool of social control and economic gain -- a whipped and cowed slave, the theory went, produced more cotton.

So looking back on it, I've concluded torture is not at all an anomaly -- our reticence about publicly using it is the ahistorical anomaly.
posted by orthogonality at 11:33 PM on May 1, 2011 [12 favorites]

If you are a bad guy, it makes sense to put your villainy lair next to a lot of civilian stuff that your enemies won't want to bomb.

It also makes life a hell of a lot more comfortable when you're a multimillionaire with chronic health problems who needs occasional runs to the convenience store to grab Hi8 tapes (not to mention a place to plug in your camera). In retrospect, the "OBL hides in caves" theory was always sort of weak - wouldn't it be much more suspicious for a guy to travel with bodyguards and a dialysis machine and, presumably, a generator, along the craggy faces of forbidding mountains, as opposed to simply chillin' in a compound and paying off the local police force?

By the by, I'm reposting this just because things get lost in this thread, but this War Nerd post on Al Qaeda from a few days ago truly is fantastic.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:34 PM on May 1, 2011

That Google Maps location isn't legit, is it? Seems so very central, plus being terribly conveniently surrounded by hospitals and schools, etc.

That location puts him right between the Taj Mahal Cinema and Abbottabad Presbyterian Church, so at least he had things to do at the weekend.
posted by rh at 11:35 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I doubt he was killed 10hrs ago. The deep of night would be an excellent time to infiltrate his compound. And Obama wouldn't still have been in writing mode, delaying the speech.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:35 PM on May 1, 2011

Can we not have the goddamn Hiroshima A-bomb -- right or wrong -- debate here? For fuck's sake, it's a stupid argument that can never be answered and totally irrelevant to this thread.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:36 PM on May 1, 2011 [19 favorites]

I doubt he was killed 10hrs ago. The deep of night would be an excellent time to infiltrate his compound.

10 hours ago was the deep of night.
posted by Bugbread at 11:37 PM on May 1, 2011

I'm glad to see that the "OBL issue" has been resolved and at first it was wonderful to see Ground Zero and Lafayette Park fill with cheering people, but as Surfurrus said, it seems like the "party" atmosphere is the focus. One college student was asked on MSNBC what she thought about it, and she exclaimed "It's America! He's Dead! It's Time to Party", as if any of those three, short sentences should be connected.

But I can't bring myself to blame the individuals, per se. We tend to be much more barbaric when our actions are collective and spontaneous. So to see the media focus on these outbursts, they are jumping on the bandwagon of rambling insanity. It's not newsworthy to quietly ponder the consequences and express solemn thankfulness that one less person can cause terror in the world. A high five has always been louder than a hug.
posted by Angulimala at 11:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Any chance the US could put bin Laden's corpse on display, and then kill him again?

Because I'd pay to see that.
posted by bwg at 11:37 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

All this narrativization about why it makes sense for Osama to live amid hospitals is interesting and all, but the fact that it's the google maps result for "Abbottabad" makes it seem like a lazy rumor. I don't really like lazy rumors in my metafilter. Where's the legitimate info about the location, please?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:37 PM on May 1, 2011

"Saddam Hussain would still be in power in Iraq"

Given how much money and how many lives we lost (speaking as an American), do you really think the on-going occupation of Iraq was worth it?

Here's a hint -- he was "our guy" in the 80's. We gave him lots of money and guns. Donald Rumsfeld even visited him and shook his hand.

But jeez, you piss of the Saudis just a little and America swoops in to spend our tax money to defend one authoritarian regime and establish another.
posted by bardic at 11:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

You seem genuinely upset that Osama Bin Laden is dead Blazecock Pileon. I'm sorry the news has put such a crimp in your day.

Hey, yo, this is a happy day. That kind of crap is totally not necessary.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:38 PM on May 1, 2011 [9 favorites]

No way they would have told the Pakistani government beforehand -- the ISI must have known where he was for a long while and would have had him out of there if they'd known a mission was in the works.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:40 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

All this narrativization about why it makes sense for Osama to live amid hospitals is interesting and all, but the fact that it's the google maps result for "Abbottabad" makes it seem like a lazy rumor. I don't really like lazy rumors in my metafilter. Where's the legitimate info about the location, please?

It's a relatively well-heeled tourist spot a la Vail or the Hamptons, according to Twitter and Wikipedia. So, barring more official info to the contrary, while the exact street address might be phony, it's not mere narrativization to comment on how that place is full of modern amenities.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:41 PM on May 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

But there's a reason we don't usually try to do this stuff here, on MeFi. Privately, it's okay to react however you want. But it's best to give yourself that time to react, then come back, join the dialogue when you're more composed, more coherent, and more dignified.

I think one of the most wonderful things about the internet-- about Metafilter, about Twitter, about Reddit, etc-- is that we're creating a record of people's real current thoughts and emotions about things for future anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and anyone else who cares to look at it.
posted by NoraReed at 11:42 PM on May 1, 2011 [10 favorites]

His compound was close to hospitals and clinics, eh?

Gee, perhaps he did not have a handy dialysis machine in a cave after all? Perhaps some "intelligence" agency coulda figured this out sooner.
posted by jkaczor at 11:42 PM on May 1, 2011

Hey, yo, this is a happy day.

ding dong - the witch is dead
posted by philip-random at 11:42 PM on May 1, 2011

You seem genuinely upset that Osama Bin Laden is dead Blazecock Pileon. [...snip raving nonsense...] having voted for David 'the beast' Cameron.
posted by joannemullen at 2:35 AM on May 2 [+]

Please give it a rest. You're not arguing with people in good faith, you're making up wild, baseless claims about what they believe and playing the poor little conservative victim.
posted by stavrogin at 11:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [21 favorites]

The guy who unknowingly live tweeted the OBL raid.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

You're criticizing people for celebrating Bin Laden's death?

Are you the guy who walked out of "The Wizard of Oz" when the Munchkins started singing "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead"?!?
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:43 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

I doubt he was killed 10hrs ago. The deep of night would be an excellent time to infiltrate his compound. And Obama wouldn't still have been in writing mode, delaying the speech.

@ReallyVirtual who was apparently in the neighborhood twittering the event live, puts it at 1AM local time or about 10 hours ago.
posted by scalefree at 11:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

Any chance the US could put bin Laden's corpse on display, and then kill him again?

We really don't need a Two Minutes' Hate.
posted by narwhal bacon at 11:44 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Maybe not the place and time for this, but here goes:

A friend was teaching English in Japan in 2001, her students folded 1000 cranes and shipped them to me with the request that would be placed in a memorial at the Pentagon. When I learned about this I did my best over the phone and email to get in touch with someone at the Pentagon and the Washington Post to hand over the cranes to someone "official" to honor the students wishes. No luck for weeks of effort. Nobody wanted to officially receive a thousand cranes from elementary students in Japan, security was ratcheting up and I was on the outside looking in.

Then the box arrived, this was late January or early February 2002, one thousand hand-folded cranes. There was no note, no picture of the students, no context. It was just an earnest wish for healing and recovery in my living room, it was moving and emotionally difficult. It was a beautiful thing to see.

We gave it a couple days, took pictures of the cranes and tried to reach out the media and the Pentagon to find someone to officially receive this gift from the Japanese children. No luck. We couldn't sit on the cranes so we packed them in the car and headed to the Pentagon. We decided to do it ourselves.

In my memory it was really cold and windy. We parked in the pentagon lot and hiked up to the area where the damaged section of the Pentagon could be viewed. There were maybe a hundred people there, in small groups, quiet and somber. There were many three or four year-old saplings that were memorial focus points for flowers and cards.

We had to hang the thousand cranes, so I tied a rope to my car keys and thew them over a tree. It was a big to-do, we got the cranes tied up to a little tree that served as an impromptu memorial.

It was difficult, we have some pictures of me and my ladyfriend trying to hang the cranes. Mostly we were laughing out asses off, it was uncomfortably awkward just to go about an ordinary day.
posted by peeedro at 11:45 PM on May 1, 2011 [20 favorites]

over 1000 comments in four hours, and at least 200 of them which we will not regret in the morning...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

From Big Picture photoblog successor In Focus: Osama Bin Laden Killed: Worldwide Reactions
posted by Rhaomi at 11:46 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

narwhal bacon: "Two Minutes' Hate"

I was hoping for at least 5 minutes.
posted by bwg at 11:47 PM on May 1, 2011

Stitcherbeast, I'm just disconcerted by how quickly people believe something connected to an indexical representation. Stick a pin on a map and it becomes believable. *eyeroll* Maybe it makes some interesting sense to imagine OBL living amid hospitals, so as to resist being bombed, so as to get the treatments he needed, so as to flout any claims of flying under the Pakistani radar, but until the location is legitimated, there's no fucking reason to think any of these things, actually, except to asist in the spinning of idle yarns.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:47 PM on May 1, 2011

Stitcherbeast, I'm just disconcerted by how quickly people believe something connected to an indexical representation.

Fair enough, but Abottabad is still rife with amenities. If he was anywhere within Abottabad, then he was near the hospitals and such. If you don't think he was captured in Abottabad, then I don't know what to tell you.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:51 PM on May 1, 2011

ok, WHO JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE AN AMERICAN FLAG BODYSUIT?
posted by nile_red at 11:56 PM on May 1, 2011 [6 favorites]

Osama Bin Laden was assassinated in 2007 according to Benazir Bhutto (former Prime Minister of Pakistan who was assassinated). At 2:16 in the video.
posted by nickyskye at 11:57 PM on May 1, 2011

othrogonality: Humor is not allowed on MeFi if it touches on any third rail topics, even if it is in direct reference to the post you are replying to. You can disparage entire countries, individuals, concepts, professions, and segments of populations as long as you clear it with the Ministry of MeTa and don't offend any special snowflakes.
posted by Argyle at 11:57 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

the lady garden,

good name for some kind of band

That's what Jeremy Clarkson calls...uh...the female equivalent of "gentleman sausage."

It's also the name used for the backing group of a female Aussie singer songwriter. Clare Bowditch? Holly Throsby maybe?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 11:58 PM on May 1, 2011

ok, WHO JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE AN AMERICAN FLAG BODYSUIT?

All Americans are required to own at least one piece of tacky, American-flag-related bodywear. For most, it comes down to a choice between an American flag bikini and a pair of American flag Zubaz, but some of the more fashionable Americans enjoy the silky smooth feeling of a spandex bodysuit.
posted by cmonkey at 11:59 PM on May 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

This blog is investigating the conflicting claims of legitimacy of several photographs of the compound location and promises updates when any may be confirmed.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:59 PM on May 1, 2011

ok, WHO JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE AN AMERICAN FLAG BODYSUIT?

Perhaps they're a speed skating enthusiast.
posted by Harpocrates at 12:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A NSA correspondent on CNN warned that it's very possible OBL has sleeper agents specifically waiting to be triggered by the event of his death. That puts a pit in my stomach.
posted by marco_nj at 12:01 AM on May 2, 2011

Bwahaha, Obama's tweet announcing the big speech was his 1,337th. Fucking pwn'd.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [57 favorites]

A NSA correspondent on CNN warned that it's very possible OBL has sleeper agents specifically waiting to be triggered by the event of his death. That puts a pit in my stomach.

Maybe. And maybe this is more of the breathless Bond villain stuff that invariably comes up whenever al-Queda is the subject.
posted by EatTheWeek at 12:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

Bwahaha, Obama's tweet announcing the big speech was his 1,337th.

Damn. He planned this years ago!
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 12:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

That google maps link sounds like a bunch of malarkey, yet it is being parroted by every man and his dog. You can check here that some random person on Google Maps input the data (under the more tag, and check edits) without anyone citing any form of evidence.
posted by ollyollyoxenfree at 12:05 AM on May 2, 2011

[my tacky Americana is a pair of Obama socks bought in Seoul.....PS just signed my contract to go back, yay!]
posted by nile_red at 12:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 12:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Headed over to the site of the WTC for a bit, to scope it out. I took this short video of people chanting.
posted by defenestration at 12:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

There was no note, no picture of the students, no context. It was just an earnest wish for healing and recovery in my living room, it was moving and emotionally difficult. It was a beautiful thing to see.

That is incredibly moving and I am a pretty hard hearted guy. The closest I have been to GZ in 10 years is to drink in a bar around the corner. I walked across town and down to 34th, near bellvue, on 9/11, they had sort of a makeshift triage set up there. People searching for loved ones, whole families crying in the street. People and vehicles moving uptown covered in soot. For my entire life whenever I gave a tourist directions I would tell them to walk towers the towers to head downtown, now there was nothing but a huge grey plume that hung in the sky. I'm going to check out the progress they have made down there tomorrow.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:09 AM on May 2, 2011

http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=14551639

News reports are saying that they lost a helicopter, just as the Twitter guy said.
posted by ollyollyoxenfree at 12:09 AM on May 2, 2011

A NSA correspondent on CNN warned that it's very possible OBL has sleeper agents specifically waiting to be triggered by the event of his death. That puts a pit in my stomach.

If I was building their strategy I wouldn't increase the risk of discovery by letting them complete operational details of an attack & then sit around on their hands for an unknown period of time waiting to be discovered. That makes sense for a nation-state that can afford to have sleeper agents get "blown" but not staff-poor outfits like al Qaeda. As soon as they're operational they should attack. And if they haven't completed operational plans for a complex high-value attack by now then their attack would be improvised & likely low yield. I'm concerned but not really worried.
posted by scalefree at 12:11 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

I don't think a world without Osama bin Laden will have less terrorism in it...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:47 AM on May 2

Yeah, but at least it will have less Osama bin Laden in it. Good riddance to the motherfucker.
posted by Decani at 12:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

A NSA correspondent on CNN warned that it's very possible OBL has sleeper agents specifically waiting to be triggered by the event of his death.
Maybe these guys (who got caught two days ago)?
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:15 AM on May 2, 2011

Poet_lariat would react to "Scientists have cured cancer!" with "does curing cancer provide a living wage to millions of Americans?!"

It's perfectly possible to be elated about the death of a mass murderer without immediately adopting the complete political beliefs of Charles Krauthammer.
posted by unigolyn at 12:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I don't think a world without Osama bin Laden will have less terrorism in it...
But there may be enough stupid Americans who believe so to make a backing off from our current Terrorized State politically possible...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

So what did Trump announce in his show that got pre-empted? Anybody know?
posted by scalefree at 12:19 AM on May 2, 2011

floam: ""Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea, a U.S. official says.""

...wait...seriously? If so, conspiracy theorists are about to have an absolute FIELD DAY.
posted by nile_red at 12:19 AM on May 2, 2011

Now we can focus our attention on Glen Beck.
posted by I love you more when I eat paint chips at 12:21 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

scalefree: "So what did Trump announce in his show that got pre-empted? Anybody know?"

[spoiler]

who got eliminated
posted by nile_red at 12:21 AM on May 2, 2011

Now we can focus our attention on Glen Beck.

You mean, kill him? FUCK YEAH!
posted by philip-random at 12:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

who got eliminated

I thought there was going to be an announcement about his candidacy. Did I get that wrong?
posted by scalefree at 12:24 AM on May 2, 2011

Not sure how to reconcile burial at sea vs. treating his corpse in accordance with sharia law. I thought he was supposed to be facing Mecca. I suspect speculation.
posted by polyhedron at 12:25 AM on May 2, 2011

Was it worth it...?
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 12:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

scalefree: "I thought there was going to be an announcement about his candidacy. Did I get that wrong?"

Not til after the Finale...May 22nd
posted by nile_red at 12:27 AM on May 2, 2011

From the Internet:

"To be logically consistent, the 911 Truthers should be condemning the murder of an innocent man."
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 12:28 AM on May 2, 2011 [21 favorites]

who got eliminated

I think time will tell us it was The Donald who got eliminated, collateral damage to Osama.
posted by orthogonality at 12:29 AM on May 2, 2011

"We killed bin Laden. We took DNA samples to make sure it was him. We buried him at sea. No, trust us: It was him. Now, go back to sleep."
posted by nile_red at 12:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

(Alleged) Death photo of bin Laden. Unknown provenance.
posted by scalefree at 12:33 AM on May 2, 2011

Isn't the next order of business tracking the money that built that suspicious mansion?
posted by jeffburdges at 12:34 AM on May 2, 2011

The only person having a worse week than ObL is Donald Trump.
posted by bardic at 12:35 AM on May 2, 2011

scalefree: "(Alleged) Death photo of bin Laden. Unknown provenance."

Not legit -- TinEye shows two hits for the same image from 2010.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

That is shopped. I can tell because of the pixels.
posted by breath at 12:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Apologies if this has already been linked: Photo
posted by ReeMonster at 12:38 AM on May 2, 2011

I can tell from seeing quite a few shops in my time.
posted by nile_red at 12:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not legit -- TinEye shows two hits for the same image from 2010.

Well.... a coward dies a thousand deaths.

(And yes, I count Osama a coward -- I'm not saying all who fight America are, that's just ridiculous Exceptionalist Jingoism -- but Osama never strapped on a suicide bom=b, he just sat safely back and seduced his followers to do so. Not to mention killing his children's pets, because he thought their pet monkeys were Jews.)
posted by orthogonality at 12:39 AM on May 2, 2011

....he thought their pet monkeys were Jews? WTF?

(goes to google)
posted by nile_red at 12:41 AM on May 2, 2011

The dropping of the A-bomb was unnecessary.

tell my dad that, who was in Oklahoma (mid-summer) getting acclimatized for jungle warfare when he heard the news. Two weeks later, he was on his way home. "You exist because of the a-bomb." He said that to me more than once.

Yep, as a youngun in the Vietnam era I self-righteously asked my mother - who'd spent four years of WWII worrying about my Dad - why she wasn't shocked by our use of the A-bomb. She replied it meant my father didn't have to leave her again. Period. End of discussion.

And along those lines I read with interest the post above by someone who recalls an almost idyllic childhood in the 1990s, innocent of how the world may have perceived us.

It reminds me yet again how vastly different our perceptions are just based on when we joined the timestream.
posted by NorthernLite at 12:42 AM on May 2, 2011 [18 favorites]

The AP is really selling a picture of a TV showing a fake image of Bin Laden? Ridiculous. Don't they know how to screencap?
posted by polyhedron at 12:44 AM on May 2, 2011

Not sure how to reconcile burial at sea vs. treating his corpse in accordance with sharia law.

Sharia law is not the same thing as Islamic law, and there are different schools of thought on sharia law (some more permissive, some more conservative).

Here's a page on Islamic burial customs. One important element is to bury the dead person fast - same day ideally. So the quickness of the burial fits with that.

And here's a page on Muslim burials at sea: [If it's not possible to bury the person in the ground, or if it's likely the person's enemies would dig up the grave and desecrate the body, then] "after giving Ghusl, Hunut, Kafan and Namaz-e-Mayyit [the body] should be lowered into the sea in a vessel of clay or with a weight tied to its feet. And as far as possible it should not be lowered at a point where it is eaten up immediately by the sea predators."
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

(should say, I don't have any particular expertise on that, just was curious about the same question as you and looked up those resources.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:55 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, that was fast. Bin Laden's already been pushed off the position of top headline on both Mainichi Shimbun and news.yahoo.co.jp.
posted by Bugbread at 1:00 AM on May 2, 2011

[the body] should be lowered into the sea in a vessel of clay or with a weight tied to its feet. And as far as possible it should not be lowered at a point where it is eaten up immediately by the sea predators."

am I the only one who's seeing Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding jumping up and down in their underwear shouting, "Show me the Body!" in perpetuity?
posted by philip-random at 1:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Woke up, didn't hear the news, then suddenly - !

first thoughts -
"I won't really believe he's dead until I've seen the 'long form' death certificate!"

Now to go to read the thread. Boy, I hope no-one else has thought of my really clever one-liner yet. It feels really fresh, unique even, like I could read it about twenty times (literally eight?) scattered throughout the thread and still find it funny...

second thought -
I'm not pro death, but the only thing that will make me 'happier' will be the deaths of a certain vice-president and a certain former secretary-of-state. This shit broke my America-loving heart.

I'm glad they got him. In a deep, atavistic way. Now if only we could start to set right the insanity his invocation was used to propagate.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks LobsterMitten, the bit about his enemies desecrating his grave seems to be key. Glad that this appears to be in accordance with tradition. Al-Jazeera just caught up with you ;)
posted by polyhedron at 1:05 AM on May 2, 2011

Me too LobsterMitten, and you beat me to it. Just chasing that down a bit further, I think what you link to in your third link (complete and unmodified here - see ch. 12) is twelver shi'a law, and that probably makes a big difference, but I don't know.

The basic problems are that they can't cremate the body without it being a major insult to many muslims, and thus potentially adding to al-Quaeda's support, and they can't bury it on land without providing a site for potential veneration or vandalism.

So, if under some circumstances burial at sea is permitted (eg death on land when a body runs the risk of being exhumed and mutilated by an enemy) it might be the only option.
posted by Ahab at 1:09 AM on May 2, 2011

It wasn't quite the start of the school day out here in Hawaii when the attacks on the World Trade Center happened. I was asleep and was woken just after dawn by the phone ringing. It was my friend, Liz.

"They blew up the World Trade Center," she said.

I was half asleep and said something like, "Oh, I'll turn on the TV."

I'm a teacher and they didn't cancel school that day, so about an hour later, I was on my way to work - earlier than I had to be there. We had an assembly for the faculty - unheard of previously - to discuss how we'd address this with our students.

It was decided we'd leave it up to each teacher, but if the students wanted to talk about it, we should let them. If they had questions for us, we should answer them. If they wanted to talk one on one, we should do that, too.

In my first class, the main question was "are we going to war?" Lots of our kids were children of military. In the coming years, several of their parents would die in the Middle East.

One girl, Laura, wanted to talk one on one. She didn't understand how this could happen. She was a freshman and had just read The Diary of Anne Frank. She quoted the famous "people are basically good" section and pondered that maybe Anne Frank was wrong, then she cried and cried and cried on my shoulder.

I was 33 and remember feeling that that was a really late age to think "wow, I'm really an adult now, aren't I?"

On Facebook, Laura (who is now 24) posted a message celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden - the sort of message you'd reserve for an event that suggested balance was returned to the world. I'm more cynical than she is by far, but symbolic things can be important. Since she was a teenager, this boogie man has hung over her head for the entirety of her adult life.

I don't know if she'll ever think people might be basically good at heart again. Maybe she's come to understand that the true meanings of Anne Frank's phrase has to do with humanity as a whole, not with the occasional evil individuals that weave in and out of history. But tonight, at least, it sounds like a shadow has been lifted from her.

Will this result in any lasting change in our world? As I said, I'm cynical and I doubt it. I don't know that good can come from violent death, no matter how much a person deserved it. No matter how much a person might have been merely a symbol of a much larger problem and not actually the problem himself.

But I hope that Laura - and a million other kids forced (perhaps prematurely) into a kind of constant fear - might be able to sleep a little easier tonight for the destruction of that symbol.

And then there are the millions of kids who live with the shadow of other boogie men in their dreams - boogie men that may well include us.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:09 AM on May 2, 2011 [84 favorites]

One man is dead. Our corporate-driven foreign policy and military industrial complex remain, and they will continue to create millions of new enemies. There is no reason to celebrate today.
posted by secondhand pho at 1:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Read the whole thread. Thanks to those of you who added info and insights.

Really happy we got the guy. He may not have been an operational leader, but he certainly was a symbolic leader for al Qaeda and a powerful figure inspiring terrorism against the US.

I wish this had happened much sooner. If there is one consolation that it took us this long, it's that it happened on Obama's watch and, evidently, as a direct result of some key leadership from him. I know this won't stop the right wing from finding some way to pick this apart, but for most people, it is a great thing and places Obama in good standing for 2012. Count on his approval rate jumping a bit after this.

If it means that Obama now has political cover/capital to wind down our involvement in Afghanistan, all the better. Bin Laden's capture may mean a number of Obama's proposals gain more traction over the next couple of years, and that he has another four years in office to continue them. That's all to the good.
posted by darkstar at 1:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Joey Michaels, thank you.
posted by nile_red at 1:14 AM on May 2, 2011

How is it that "Obama" issued an order on Friday?

Wasn't this the (unsuccessful) Bush policy? Was there not already a standing order to kill or capture OBL for like say, 10 years already? I mean what have all of those drones been doing over Pakistan for most of the past decade?
posted by three blind mice at 1:17 AM on May 2, 2011

This was apparently a unilateral action taken by American military ground forces inside the borders of a sovereign nation without the knowledge or consent of that nation. Otherwise known as an act of war. It would be shocking if anyone but Obama could give the order for American ground forces to invade a foreign nation.
posted by Justinian at 1:22 AM on May 2, 2011

A standing order would cover if you happen to run across him, go for it. This was at a location they'd been tracking him at for months, training the SEAL team for the specific compound layout over & over. Plus historically it'll look better for your legacy if you have a letter authorizing the strike. And yeah, covert action inside a sovereign state without notification.
posted by scalefree at 1:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here is a kind thought to the man that gave his life mortally wounding the american dragon.

.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 1:26 AM on May 2, 2011

I don't even... what?
posted by Justinian at 1:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

CautionToTheWind: "mortally wounding the american dragon."
.
.
.
.
.
?

I think this is not how I would have worded this sentiment, if I felt it.
posted by nile_red at 1:31 AM on May 2, 2011

CautionToTheWind, your kind thought is directed at a man who participated in the unprovoked murder of civilians. What the hell?

Eponysterical. In a bad way.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:33 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hang on. Buried at sea? Are you guys serious? Why would you want to hide the body at the bottom of the sea before anyone could see it?
posted by pracowity at 1:33 AM on May 2, 2011

The DNA test was done amazingly quickly - kudos to the lab techs that were able to carry out such a delicate test under combat conditions at such short notice. The thing that really impresses me, though, is the way they could confirm his identity using DNA from his half-sister and tell that the corpse was Osama, not one of his children or other relatives. Well done.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

THIS
THIS
THIS
THIS

Don't you have a [+] button?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 1:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

And now for the conspiracy theories.
posted by stavrogin at 1:39 AM on May 2, 2011

What makes you think the DNA tests were done under "combat conditions", Joe?
posted by Justinian at 1:39 AM on May 2, 2011

You heard it here first: Obama wins 2012 election...

Uh yeah, just like bush ensured his own victory by capturing Saddam! Oh wait. People won't remember this in, what is it, 18 months?

Also I can't believe people think he timed this to pre-empt Celebrity Apprentice. Come on people.

Mefi's Own @Hodgman: I think it's ok to take a 12 hour pause on cynicism.

How is celebrating someone's death not cynical?

I'm hopeful that this can spell the end of the WoT, but I do find celebrating death kind of creepy. I actually would rather have seen him captured alive anyway. What's better for him personally, a quick clean death fighting the infidels, or being humiliated by being captured, while suffering in jail for the rest of his life and being denied the opportunity for martyrdom?

I guess I can understand for kids who grew up having this guy continually presented as the epitome of evil, though.
posted by delmoi at 1:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Osama Bin Laden didn't exactly invent, or lead the numbers in, the unprovoked murder of civilians.

There are those that think that the U.S. has the right to every resource on earth and to define the government of other people to suit its needs. Some argue some form of american exceptionalism, while most just don't really give it much thought.

Others think that this american attitude, combined with the vast american military forces, are the greatest current threat to non-americans.

So, while we watch your country slowly desintegrate, we are grateful for every nudge you got in that direction. May one day americans live in peace and respect for other peoples. Let's hope it doesn't cost many more lives.

Enjoy the celebrations. The day is yours.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 1:42 AM on May 2, 2011

You could eliminate most other bin Ladens through age, gender, height & maybe known location elsewhere. And we don't know what confidence level they decided would be acceptable.
posted by scalefree at 1:44 AM on May 2, 2011

CautionToTheWind: "Osama Bin Laden didn't exactly invent, or lead the numbers in, the unprovoked murder of civilians.

There are those that think that the U.S. has the right to every resource on earth and to define the government of other people to suit its needs. Some argue some form of american exceptionalism, while most just don't really give it much thought."

So, since he's not the worst, and since America's not the best, yaaay death? We're not allowed to form opinions on people who don't represent an extreme?
posted by nile_red at 1:45 AM on May 2, 2011

Good for you, CautionToTheWind, you've found a way to be a giant raging hemorrhoid on the internet. Your countrymen must be pround.
posted by Justinian at 1:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

while we watch your country slowly desintegrate, we are grateful for every nudge you got in that direction.

Just for the record... you are saying that the 9-11 attack was a good thing? That you are grateful for? Because I don't really know how else to read this.
posted by taz at 1:51 AM on May 2, 2011

"How is celebrating someone's death not cynical?"

Maybe I'm working from the wrong definition of cynical, but I thought it was about skepticism and distrust. Saying "it's a frameup, he isn't really dead" would be cynical, as would "sure, he's dead, but it doesn't change anything". Saying "yay, he's dead!" isn't cynical. Dark, perhaps, but dark does not equal cynical.
posted by Bugbread at 1:53 AM on May 2, 2011

Yeah, I'd be a bit careful with that "we" in the gratitude there. You don't speak for anyone except yourself.
posted by harriet vane at 1:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Weird. AP Exclusive: Indonesian militant snared in Pakistan hill town on route to al-Qaida lands. Probably means nothing, just a curious synchronicity. But it's early days to categorically toss it out as a false pattern.
posted by scalefree at 1:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"And now for the conspiracy theories."

Prediction: bin Laden (who is dead) 'releases' a tape in the next week or two denying his death (a tape he makes every few months just in case he does actually dies, thus giving him an easy, low-cast way of adding misinformation into the mix).
posted by ollyollyoxenfree at 1:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Maybe we should learn to be tolerant of other people's beliefs, even if it means loving raging hemorrhoids. It's not exactly like our military isn't responsible for the deaths of many thousands of innocent people since 9/11. Great injustices have been perpetrated for the known history of humanity. Usually because we couldn't just figure out how to share or accept others' differences.

I'm not saying I have sympathy for bin Laden but I kind of understand those who do. And I've made more than my fair share of stupid posts on the internet, I understand that quite well.
posted by polyhedron at 1:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Good riddance.

The aftermath of this will, hopefully, be uneventful.
posted by flippant at 2:00 AM on May 2, 2011

CautionToTheWind: "So, while we watch your country slowly desintegrate, we are grateful for every nudge you got in that direction."

Isn't well-wishing the wounder of America's ability to wage horrible bloody acts of war on innocent civilians, who accomplished that wounding via a horrible bloody act of war on innocent civilians, just a wee bit hypocritical? On top of being tactless, dickish, and repulsive, I mean.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Osama Bin Laden didn't exactly invent, or lead the numbers in, the unprovoked murder of civilians.

So what? Just because Hitler caused more deaths than Pol Pot, that doesn't make Hitler an angel.

You, however, are being unpleasant, and wholly inappropriate in this forum. Metatalk, perhaps?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 2:09 AM on May 2, 2011

Hang on. Buried at sea? Are you guys serious? Why would you want to hide the body at the bottom of the sea before anyone could see it?
posted by pracowity at 1:33 AM on May 2 [+] [!]

Kasie Hunt (Politico politics writer), who is on the conference call says: "Officials on the handling of OBL's body: "We are making sure it is handled in accordance with Islamic tradition and practice.""
posted by thebestsophist at 9:39 PM on May 1 [9 favorites +] [!]

If it's going to be handled in accordance with Islamic tradition and practice the body needs to be dealt with as soon as possible - kept free from decay or mutilation, washed, wrapped in a shroud, prayed over, and (ideally) buried facing the qibla.

But it cannot be buried without creating a site for a shrine (even if the actual burial site isn't known, people will invent one).

It cannot be cremated without seriously pissing off a lot of muslims who would not otherwise support al Quaeda.

That just doesn't leave a lot of options. So if burial at sea is a legally and traditionally acceptable choice, it could well be seen as a desirable one.

But.. sure.. burial at sea would create one hell of a base for conspiracy theory.
posted by Ahab at 2:10 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's room in my world for shades of grey, for ambiguity over American imperialism, recognition that we have a poor record of living up to our ideals or prediction of some level of collapse because of poor decisions by our leaders in the near future. But this is several steps beyond any of that, blatantly rooting for al Qaeda as the agent of our downfall. No, that's not coloring inside the lines of my world. Sorry.
posted by scalefree at 2:11 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think Caution is trolling us. Or has been pushed by certain principles over the line, to become unmoored from basic reality/decency. Either way, best not to engage.
posted by darkstar at 2:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Wait, what the fuck? But I'm Osama Bin Laden. Who the fuck is that guy?
posted by loquacious at 2:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have to disagree with all the people looking with horror at the celebrations at this news, because they're not celebrations of a single man's death, but of the death of a symbol. The attacks on 9/11 kicked off a decade of an unprecedented waning of American influence, accomplishment, and global standing. It was a decade marked by a crashing economy and misguided foreign policy, but mostly by feelings of impotence, cynicism, and depression; we seemed powerless solve the legion of problems around us. Hell, we couldn't even catch one guy, one single guy! Osama's freedom has been the background on which this decline has played out; he was the symbol for US failure.

So, I don't see the street revelry as a bloodthirsty carnival, but as a cathartic outpouring tinged with the hope that maybe America is not as powerless as we thought, maybe we can solve global warming, end mideast conflict, get our economy roaring again, cure AIDS, and terraform Mars while were at it, because we got Osama right? Because America gets things done.

Now stop talking about WWII and go build some high-speed rail.
posted by Panjandrum at 2:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

Osama Bin Laden really shouldn't have used his real address on PSN.

Hahahah. Also, and this too.

Sorry just got off the front page of reddit.
posted by delmoi at 2:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Dude, think hard about what you want to achieve in this thread, maybe have a coffee, a little walk, then come back and if it still feels pressing think hard about how to say it.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:19 AM on May 2, 2011

On the day of 9/11 some of the people at the college I was at were talking about how they could apologize to the rest of the world for making it neccesary for them to attack us.
When I celebrated Saddam Hussein's capture I was yelled at by some of my teachers.

I believe that Caution to the Wind can hold those opinions.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:23 AM on May 2, 2011

I ended up leaving the United States for a lot of reasons. Underpinning quite a few of them: what its reaction — political, cultural, military — to the actions of Osama bin Laden revealed it had become. You can't roll back the clock on the end of the American Century. In terms of actual problems facing the country, bin Laden and indeed the whole amorphous BOO SCARY of western-focused Islamist terrorism doesn't crack the top ten. And now he's finally been found and brought to some fashion of justice, but it doesn't really fix anything.

I'm not going to celebrate. Mainly because it feels wrong to celebrate the death of anyone, no matter how cartoonishly evil. I've also not got a proper flag or place to do so, and waving around a Swiss flag on the Paradeplatz chanting USA USA USA seems to miss the point as much as the Stars and Bars I saw go up on pickups in Memphis the morning of September 11. But I probably shouldn't derail myself...

But I am glad he's gone. Humanity has a clear interest in making it clear to those who would use mass murder as a political tool, those who would indiscriminately attack civilians in the service of any ideology, that such actions are intolerable, and will lead to personal consequences, with no statute of limitations. To steal a NATO term, it adjusts the risk-calculus for would-be leaders of terrorism.

Hope beyond hope, the fall of the authoritarian regimes of the erstwhile Caliphate will allow politics in the region to become the continuation of terrorism by other means. But one step at a time.
posted by Vetinari at 2:24 AM on May 2, 2011

And half my Facebook wall is anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:24 AM on May 2, 2011

Today is a good day. Save your hand wringing and set aside your liberal guilt for 24 hours and enjoy that sweet feeling that justice was eventually served on a nasty piece of work. Sure, it's not going to be pretty watching normally good people celebrate the demise of another human being. But fuck it, the news sure feels good right now. From someone with little time for U.S. foreign policy or your brand of nationalism I'm glad you got your guy.
posted by R.Stornoway at 2:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I can believe there's people who hold those views. I just don't find them within the range of acceptability in civil society, any more than white supremacy or the Weather Underground. Point out its flaws all you like but if you root for the destruction of my country through political violence & large-scale murder of civilians, you lose the cover of reasonable debate.
posted by scalefree at 2:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

RIP, Ahmad Shah Massoud.
posted by nicolin at 2:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

Agreeing with all who've said that it feels odd to watch people celebrate this and that my reaction was "well this part's over, but there are still our troops to be concerned for." And cheering over anyone's death also reminded me of shots we see of protesters in other countries - except look, we do it too, so apparently we're not at all different from some of the folks we've been in disagreement with. I figured I'd just take away from it that there might be a segment of folk in other countries that also wouldn't cheer such news, and also wouldn't be keen to run be on tv.

And then my next thought was WTF, who would carry around a full size flag and whose idea in the crowd was to sing the Star Spangled Banner?! A small flag a could maybe see, but a large one isn't just something you have tucked in your backpack, normally - and come on, no one can sing the National Anthem well, it just comes out all tuneless and sad. It all looked so weird from this side of the tv screen.

Any of you who were there, did you show up with a flag? I saw a reference to someone who did, and in that case of a father with a dead son could maybe understand having one around, perhaps that he intended to leave at a memorial or something.
posted by batgrlHG at 2:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The U.S. Army also does not follow the rules of reasonable debate.

And comparing me to white supremacy? If there is one thing the U.S. stands for is white supremacy! Just ask any black person there.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 2:45 AM on May 2, 2011

And then my next thought was WTF, who would carry around a full size flag and whose idea in the crowd was to sing the Star Spangled Banner?!

I was drunk in the pub last week and someone singing Advance Australia Fair was enough to get me (trying to) sing the Star Spangled Banner. This seems like a more appropriate time.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 2:48 AM on May 2, 2011

If there is one thing the U.S. stands for is white supremacy! Just ask any black person there.

I will immediately write a letter to one Mr. Barack Obama asking him for his thoughts on this matter.
posted by Panjandrum at 2:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

So, while we watch your country slowly desintegrate, we are grateful for every nudge you got in that direction.

You're talking about Portugal, right?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:56 AM on May 2, 2011

And comparing me to white supremacy? If there is one thing the U.S. stands for is white supremacy! Just ask any black person there.

Uh, no.
posted by delmoi at 2:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe you should. And write to some prison too.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 2:58 AM on May 2, 2011

man, this was the greatest monday morning wakeup ever.
posted by krautland at 3:01 AM on May 2, 2011

Maybe you should. And write to some prison too.

Maybe I should what?
posted by delmoi at 3:01 AM on May 2, 2011

I've said my peace. Your position is based on some combination of hate & logic so twisted there's no realistic possibility of reaching you with reason, debate & discussion. I'm withdrawing from the field because if we go any further it'll just turn into the Argument Sketch from Monty Python & who needs that? Score it however you like.
posted by scalefree at 3:02 AM on May 2, 2011

"And comparing me to white supremacy? If there is one thing the U.S. stands for is white supremacy! Just ask any black person there."

So...if you're pretty much the moral equivalent of a white supremacist, and the U.S. stands for white supremacy, then you're basically pro-USA, and this is performance art, right?
posted by Bugbread at 3:02 AM on May 2, 2011

"Just ask any black person there."

Why don't you just ask one of your black friends? I'm sure you've got like, two or so.
posted by bardic at 3:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Interesting how people who've been around here long enough to know better can't keep themselves from feeding the troll.
posted by spicynuts at 3:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Between logic 101 fail and let's count our black friends, I'm withdrawing from the field too, as scalefree says.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 3:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

And comparing me to white supremacy? If there is one thing the U.S. stands for is white supremacy! Just ask any black person there.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 2:45 AM on May 2 [+] [!]

Erm, like the black persons currently living in the White House?

God, I'm ashamed of originating from the same peninsula as you. Also, somebody from Portugal should be damn careful about mentioning white supremacy or anything even remotely related to slavery.
posted by Skeptic at 3:10 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Actually, no. Dude sent out a video saying he did it. There are no due process issues in this case.

That's why it's better he's killed than captured. You have to doubt that a trial would be so simple as playing a video and leading him off to the gallows.
posted by Jehan at 3:11 AM on May 2, 2011

Between logic 101 fail and let's count our black friends

How about black family members?
posted by delmoi at 3:11 AM on May 2, 2011

So many people forget to plan for post-event traffic, that I just expect it.

I saw the "please wait" type message, looked at the time, and assumed they screwed up because it was obviously already over...

So I missed it.

Why they didn't have the feed of the people waiting is beyond me.
posted by MikeWarot at 3:13 AM on May 2, 2011

It’s the old kiddie dream of a vast umbrella group of baddies, S.P.E.C.T.R.E from Man from Uncle, KAOS in Get Smart, the ridiculous villain and his volcano HQ in every lame Bond film.

Actually. SPECTRE were the Bond baddies, and the enemy of UNCLE was THRUSH.
posted by bonefish at 3:14 AM on May 2, 2011

I thought SMERSH were the bond baddies? As in smert shpion?
posted by spicynuts at 3:15 AM on May 2, 2011

(closing tag)
posted by bonefish at 3:16 AM on May 2, 2011

That's the brilliance of it, Jehan. By sending out a video with a confession Osama ensured that no untainted jury could be empaneled - so he could never be tried! He made only one mistake: he thought he was dealing with the old USA, the one with due process. This is USA 2.0.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:16 AM on May 2, 2011

But.. sure.. burial at sea would create one hell of a base for conspiracy theory.

He's dead as the dodo, imho. Would your risk losing any credibility by declaring him dead and then have him pop up in a week or so? Nah.
posted by elpapacito at 3:19 AM on May 2, 2011

Did bin-laden say he sent out a video claiming he did it? I thought there was a CIA video of him bragging about it with some other AQ people.
posted by delmoi at 3:20 AM on May 2, 2011

Say what you will about Osama Bin Laden, but the dude was good looking. Noone can take that away from him.
posted by klue at 3:25 AM on May 2, 2011

"Interesting how people who've been around here long enough to know better can't keep themselves from feeding the troll."

I'm by no means the oldest person here -- not even close -- but having used the Internet or internet-like-things (dial-up BBSes, etc.) for around 25 years now, I am old enough to feel genuine shame in the fact that I still get taken in by trolls. And I'm not even talking about the new-school definition, "someone who believes in and says unpopular stuff, resulting in shit getting riled up", but the old-school "someone who doesn't even believe what they're saying, but says it expressly to rile shit up" sense.

I mean, c'mon, after over two decades of net use, you'd figure I'd learn my lesson...
posted by Bugbread at 3:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ahab : It cannot be cremated without seriously pissing off a lot of muslims who would not otherwise support al Quaeda. That just doesn't leave a lot of options.

How about impaled on a long pole and mounted to the mast of the replacement WTC, slathered in bacon grease with his genitals stuffed in his mouth? That cool with everyone?

Sorry, but when you become a mass murderer, you lose the right to a say in the disposition of your remains. This guy rates up there with Mussolini (a petty wannabe mass murderer, not an A-league player like Hitler or Stalin), so why not treat his remains similarly?
posted by pla at 3:34 AM on May 2, 2011

This guy rates up there with Mussolini (a petty wannabe mass murderer, not an A-league player like Hitler or Stalin), so why not treat his remains similarly?

And that's what distinguishes us from savages, folks.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [13 favorites]

How about impaled on a long pole and mounted to the mast of the replacement WTC, slathered in bacon grease with his genitals stuffed in his mouth? That cool with everyone?

I'd leave that to terrorists, torturers and Talibans (or similar religion wingnuts). I'd have liked life imprisonment in a salt mine for him, tho.
posted by elpapacito at 3:38 AM on May 2, 2011

ladygypsy: "The rise of social media - I heard about this on World of Warcraft trade chat (yeah, yeah) and came to MeFi to confirm."

Same here. What a world.

I'm feeling a kind of numb relief. 10 years ago, my second oldest brother was working in NYC. I was on holidays in Canada. I was the only family member he could reach because of the overloaded phone lines. I will never forget the anguish in his voice when he told me he saw the plane hit the second tower and how he saw the towers collapse (I saw them both collapse on tv). My horrified feelings mixed with almost guilty relief knowing he was alive can still make me tear up.
posted by deborah at 3:39 AM on May 2, 2011

"This guy rates up there with Mussolini (a petty wannabe mass murderer, not an A-league player like Hitler or Stalin), so why not treat his remains similarly?"

Uh, maybe because "It cannot be cremated without seriously pissing off a lot of muslims who would not otherwise support al Quaeda."

I mean, I understand not reading every comment in the thread, but at least read the comment that you yourself are quoting.
posted by Bugbread at 3:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

We walk right into the trap he (+ others) set for us, do more damage to ourselves than he could have done in three lifetimes, and now we've made a martyr out of him. Bravo.
posted by ryanshepard at 3:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

spicynuts, SMERSH was an allegedly real GRU operation and appeared briefly in the books, but only appears in the movies (a decade later) as "closed down years ago". SPECTRE, and its putative leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, were the main villain until Diamonds Are Forever, but for rights reasons were not used after that.

The rise of social media - I heard about this on World of Warcraft trade chat (yeah, yeah) and came to MeFi to confirm

I had to pull up MSNBC so my mom could watch something familiar, and I tried to keep up with Facebook and MeFi in the background -- both of them offered much more information more quickly than David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell could ad lib. It was barely tolerable blather, in fact.
I'm reminded of the Olympic Park bombing, which was initially covered by network sports people, who didn't know how to be annoyingly pretentious and thus just kept pushing information out there, until a name anchor showed up.

I know I'm one of a smaller and smaller handful of MeFites from the early days. It's weird to remember the 9/11 thread, and so clearly.
posted by dhartung at 3:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Lovecraft in Brooklyn: And half my Facebook wall is anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories

Well, it's your Facebook wall. This is what your friends are saying, right? It might be time to look at your social graph.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:52 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Palin, alone so far among Republican potential candidates, has issued a tweet thanking the troops involved, but failing to mention the commander in chief.

Can you imagine the faces of Hannity, Limbaugh, Palin, Ailes, et al. when they got this news?

There's a fantastic little lolcat graphic going around like wildfire right now, showing President Obama looking all Brad Pitt in his sunglasses and black suit with the caption "Sorry it took so long to get you a copy of my birth certificate. I was too busy killing Bin Laden."
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

It would have been good to get the fucker alive, but dead is a perfectly acceptable second choice.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 3:59 AM on May 2, 2011

White House briefing:

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: [...] During the raid, we lost one helicopter due to mechanical failure.

Same White House briefing:

Q Yes, hey, how are you doing? My question would be, what was the type of the helicopter that failed? And what was the nature of that mechanical failure?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Can’t go into details at this time.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We didn’t say it was mechanical.

Come on, guys, get your stories straight.
posted by pracowity at 4:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Palin, alone so far among Republican potential candidates, has issued a tweet thanking the troops involved, but failing to mention the commander in chief.

At least resolving the question of whether she was going to claim to have sniped OBL from the roof of her house. You can see Pakistan from her house, right?
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Congratulations everyone!
THis is an important symbolic event. Obama is doing what he said he'd do: get back to getting the bad guy and stop fighting proxy wars with non-existing enemies.
In itself, it probably isn't very important wether Bin Laden lives or dies, but as a symbol, it is extremely important.
It makes it clear to other nations that Obama will do what needs to be done, regardless. Some nations, and Pakistan is one of them, have difficulty understanding more civil forms of communication.
This may help Obama get reelected, and Democrats back in the house, and that, I believe is necessary for the US economy. A sound American economy is important for everyone in the world. The Republicans have consistently since Reagan been economically irresponsible, and there is no sign this is changing at all. If killing Bin Laden, a known mass murderer, is what it takes to get Americans to vote responsibly, it is a small price.
I, personally, have a longer wish-list. I'd like for the USA to take the lead on sustainable energy, on getting the Israel/Palestine conflict solved, and yes: ending those wars. And part of my hope for a good American economy is getting a real health-care solution for Americans, and less inequality in America. But right now and here, I am really happy for this symbolic act because I see it as a sign of the beginning of better times.
Oh, and I am not scared of retribution. Al Qaeda has lost it's momentum some time ago.
posted by mumimor at 4:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

elpapacito : I'd have liked life imprisonment in a salt mine for him, tho.

Actually, I'd quite have liked that idea - With a twist. Make it well-known where we have him, and use it as a honeypot for every like-minded whackjob to blow themselves up trying to free Osama.

Hell, they could still do that... Hold his body "hostage" in such a place, and just sit back and wait for the baddies to come and (try to) get him.

Bugbread : I mean, I understand not reading every comment in the thread, but at least read the comment that you yourself are quoting.

"Read" does not mean "agree with" or even "care about". As I pointed out, you lose your say in how society disposes of your body when you decide to kill a few thousand people and declare war on half the globe.
posted by pla at 4:05 AM on May 2, 2011

... you lose your say in how society disposes of your body when you decide to kill a few thousand people and declare war on half the globe.

Especially when millions of other people might be interested in - you know - tangible evidence of your death.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:11 AM on May 2, 2011

... you lose your say in how society disposes of your body when you decide to kill a few thousand people and declare war on half the globe.

hmm...So I'm still wondering why say GWB hasn't been hunted down and killed then? I'm sure more than a few thousand people have been killed in Iraq..
posted by mary8nne at 4:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

"As I pointed out, you lose your say in how society disposes of your body when you decide to kill a few thousand people and declare war on half the globe."

Yes, but your quote had nothing to do with Bin Laden's say. It was about other people. So you either quoted something you don't care about (which is kinda strange), or you quoted something you disagreed with, but you didn't quote it to express your disagreement with it, but instead to ignore it and talk about something else you disagree with, which (as far as I know) nobody has said?

"Hold his body "hostage" in such a place, and just sit back and wait for the baddies to come and (try to) get him."

I disagree that peperoni is a better pizza topping than Italian sausage.
posted by Bugbread at 4:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Statement by George W. Bush on the death of Bin Laden.

"Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."
posted by crunchland at 4:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

It looks like some guy inadvertently live tweeted this mission. (scroll all the way down for the beginning)
posted by NoMich at 4:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sully has a good old quote from Mark Twain, to the effect of "I've never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure." I have always thought that way.

But fuck it, I wished this motherfucker dead. I admit it. And only part of it is a patriotic feeling for my country. Most of it is my love for New York, which (the older I get the more) I consider my real "country," and which is a place of huge diversity and huge tolerance where people of all and no faiths have mostly done very well building a civil society together, and where we pride ourselves on this accomplishment. To have been attacked like that, in such a perverse and inhumane way, and *then* to have that attack be leveraged into exactly what OBL (and in my opinion, after the fact, many in the Bush administration) wanted from it, which was a wave of religious hatred so great that it swamped any chance for many kinds of global progress for a decade, was tragedy added to tragedy, crime to crime.

I read Bin Laden's obituary with great pleasure. But beyond that, I wished him dead. Given the chance, I would have happily pulled the trigger myself. Sometimes, revenge is justified. But whether it is or not, sometimes, the feeling is unstoppable in human history.

Get out of the way of the catharsis, I guess, if it bothers you. There's going to be some noise made today. I was just down on the sidewalk of my building. Two construction workers walked by on their way to work, and I heard them mentioning 9/11 (one even had his Never Forget t shirt on, I'm sure for the occasion!). I threw them a thumbs up and they tossed it back, all of us grinning ear to ear. "Great day!" I shouted as they walked by. "Fuck yeah!" one answered.

So it's New York, Fuck Yeah! for me, today.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

In retrospect, the "OBL hides in caves" theory was always sort of weak - wouldn't it be much more suspicious for a guy to travel with bodyguards and a dialysis machine and, presumably, a generator, along the craggy faces of forbidding mountains, as opposed to simply chillin' in a compound and paying off the local police force?

Sticherbeast, I don't know of anyone who seriously subscribed to the caves theory after the first couple of months following Tora Bora. The general consensus for some years has been that he was traveling from guest house to guest house amongst his patrons and supporters, with the generalized location presumed to be the border areas of Pakistan like the former North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), where there is a high level of antipathy toward the central government in Islamabad, and where the Taliban were originally formed. There are still some millions of Afghan refugees in the region.

A lot of the US military action has centered on this area. Although both Bush and Obama were loath to state it, it's probable that the continued campaign of strike on HVTs proceeded with the faint hope that by chance one of them would take out OBL.

What's unsurprising about this is that, given his age and attested poor health, he was in an urbanized area with things like medical services. What's surprising is that he settled into a single location for a number of years, and largely managed to keep it secret. I suppose having only a few trusted men there helped with the secrecy, but it also left a very vulnerable link to the outside, which the US eventually followed. So I think there was either overconfidence or a presumption that moving was (as it would be) more dangerous.

Anyway, now that we've gotten him, maybe this pound-the-compounds campaign can wind down. An angle that hasn't been mentioned yet is the pause in that activity related to the Raymond Davis arrest. I wonder if the lack of cooperation between the CIA and ISI afforded the US an opportunity to close in on OBL without worrying about a drafty window.
posted by dhartung at 4:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

... you lose your say in how society disposes of your body when you decide to kill a few thousand people and declare war on half the globe.

Especially when millions of other people might be interested in - you know - tangible evidence of your death.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:11 AM on May 2 [+] [!]

Actually, purely from the point of view of domestic politics, getting rid of the body is a masterstroke. It'll give birthers a new conspiracy theory to embarrass themselves with for the next year and a half.

After Obama's birth certificate...Osama's death certificate. I can't wait for Trump and Palin to take up that cause.
posted by Skeptic at 4:26 AM on May 2, 2011

Neil deGrasse Tyson offers his perspective on the whole matter.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Deathers?
posted by Ahab at 4:29 AM on May 2, 2011

On the left, at least, a few have held the (sometimes enticing) belief that Osama Bin Laden was never even "alive," -- that he was essentially a villain from Central Casting cooked up by the black suits, so comic-book-evil it was almost absurd, always able to produce a scary video right when the Bush administration needed one, etc.

I mean, come on, the dude was right out of a Steven Seagall movie.

I imagine there will be more right wing converts to that idea, almost immediately. No body to show off really does help. But I am presuming there are at least going to be pictures, and that they are going to leak.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:34 AM on May 2, 2011

Ain't nothing wrong with celebrating Osama's demise. It appears that Obama tried to capture him for a trial, but he unsurprisingly went down fighting. Good enough!

I'm now most interested in who paid for that mansion.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Purposeful Grimace: actually, my guesstimate is that the USA has spent about twice as much on the war in Afghanistan and "the War on Terror" as it has on the entire US space program from the first Apollo missions until today.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

gerryblog: For those uneasy about the scenes of celebration, remember also that a lot of these kids were like 9 years old when 9/11 happened. For them it's like Obama killed the devil.

I was ten when 9/11 happened. For many kids my age, 9/11 is pretty much the first major worldwide thing we can remember. Since then, we've essentially grown up in a world defined by the aftermath and effects of the attacks. I imagine this notion is magnified for those who were more directly affected than I was. But, in short, yeah: this is a particularly big deal for my generation.

Also, it's the week before finals. Any excuse to blow off some steam.

Finally, a little off topic: I'm just finishing up a semester in Paris, and I'm getting ready to spend May traveling around Europe. I initially heard about all this from the thirteen State Department emails that were in my inbox this morning. It's a little unnerving.
posted by Comic Sans-Culotte at 4:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

What's all this what-what (from both Presidents) about justice "being done."

Isn't justice served?
posted by rokusan at 4:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hate myself for feeling this way but I'm glad he's dead. Now if we'd just get back some of the Constitutional rights we lost in the meantime...
posted by tommasz at 4:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was ten when 9/11 happened. For many kids my age, 9/11 is pretty much the first major worldwide thing we can remember.

Ah, for my generation that event was the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. They were bright years, for a while.
posted by smoke at 4:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Holy crap. 40k "likes" on George W. Bush's facebook page of his statement, and 10k comments congratulating him.
posted by crunchland at 4:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

rokusan: "What's all this what-what (from both Presidents) about justice "being done."

Isn't justice served?"

Best cold, I hear.
posted by Splunge at 4:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

40k "likes" on George W. Bush's facebook page of his statement, and 10k comments congratulating him.

Congrats are warranted. For eight full years, dude just kept fucking that chicken.
posted by rokusan at 4:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

Well, this certainly made for a visceral moment as I opened my newspaper this morning.

I'm glad for an end to (at least part of) this thing. At the same time, I feel an odd internal conflict; it has to do with the way some folks' eyes shine as they wave flags and carry on in the streets. A death is a death.

I wish he could have been taken alive and forced to face the families of those whose lives he'd been involved in taking--for a start.

Yes, I can think of far, far better uses for him alive.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:41 AM on May 2, 2011

Having slept and thought on the news, I have to say I'm feeling deeply satisfied about the announcement and with that comes some happiness. Not so much that Bin Laden is dead, as that will change very little (though I shed no tears) but happy about the process.

The President made it priority. The CIA spent a couple years tracking a lead. The military went in and did what they do

There was no shock and awe, no grand pomp and swaggering statements. There was a job to do, they did it and did it well and there is little official gloating in the aftermath. No Mission Accomplished sign, no swaggering in flight suit, no childish bluster. Just do it and move on. That's the way it should be done.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:41 AM on May 2, 2011 [67 favorites]

Could be, Joe in Australia. And I might agree with you. So now that you have his Twitter feed, you can enlighten him.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:41 AM on May 2, 2011

I know I'm one of a smaller and smaller handful of MeFites from the early days. It's weird to remember the 9/11 thread, and so clearly.

I also remember. Not being from the US, that thread was how I experienced what people were going through across the Atlantic. The world is such a different place now, and for a lot of people (mainly muslims, well done Bin Laden!) a worse place. I hope this is another turning point, in a good way.
posted by Summer at 4:42 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A terrorist leader's body is a wonder. There are entire civilzations that would tear this world apart for one cell. We do this properly.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [13 favorites]

Such a weird time to be a Pak-Amer-istani-can. I can't say I have any sympathy for Bin Laden. I think the horrors he's brought upon Afghanistan and Pakistan are pretty damnable.

As for Abbotabad, sigh. My husband and his brother both went to the boarding school there. I don't know what to think about the ISI's knowledge of or involvement in any of this. As for thinking that American helicopters would have been shot down by the Pakistani armed forces if they hadn't known beforehand, that stretches credulity.

My Facebook feed is full of fear and cynicism right now.

Finally, this from a Facebook friend:
"a friend had a khala (maternal aunt) in a house 2 km away, and says that everyone knew that was a house "foreigners" lived in. meaning, strange type. sigh. what i positively dislike is knowing that you dont know the full picture."

So, people would have known something weird was up. But they wouldn't have known how weird. Strange people living in heavily armed and guarded houses are unfortunately all too common in Pakistan, even more so in the north-west.

The whole thing fills me with a sense of deep foreboding. Almost as bad as when I saw the towers tumbling. And that's even though I think the world is much better off without Osama Bin Laden in it.
posted by bardophile at 4:48 AM on May 2, 2011 [25 favorites]

Oh, and here's another pertinent comment from a former student:

"I am so confused: if, as is being reported on the BBC, the precise location of OBL was determined LAST summer, then how come there was an increased incidence of drone attacks across NWFP in the name of taking out OBL?"
posted by bardophile at 4:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

There was no shock and awe, no grand pomp and swaggering statements. There was a job to do, they did it and did it well and there is little official gloating in the aftermath.

Maybe it's just nostalgia talking, but I miss the days when Metafilter didn't echo the credulous, fawning false gravitas of the MSM so often.

Time to take another break.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

That you choose to associate with a pack of shallow-minded ignorant dipsticks is unsurprising.

These are left-wing conspiricy theories, but I'm sick of arguing with them. I blame too much sun and too much booze.
I'll still never forget my fellow students trying to APOLOGIZE to bin Laden after 9/11 though. I think I just kept yelling about revenge.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:54 AM on May 2, 2011

was Bin Laden as tall as Bigfoot?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

There is no right way to feel or react here. I've found myself all over the place this morning. But I keep reading...here, Facebook, Twitter...each reaction informs my own. And while I don't always agree, nor is my stance settled, I feel part of this flow. So I am grateful to have access to all this perspective, even if I may never quite know or understand just how I feel about it all.
posted by iamkimiam at 4:58 AM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

I think I wish I thought this would change more.
posted by OmieWise at 5:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I imagine Chuck Norris or maybe Charlie Sheen catch Osama in the toilet and say, "Obama says Hello Mother F*#%R!"

Osama's reaction, "Obama? Obama? ... Oh $h*t!"
posted by xtian at 5:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not legit -- TinEye shows two hits for the same image from 2010.

I found it on this wacky 2009 blog post.

One of my Facebook friends posted the picture and is insisting it's real. Even if it were real I don't think blasting everyone's newsfeeds with a picture of a dead body would be appropriate, but the fact that it is so obviously fake adds an extra bit of headdesking to my morning.
posted by naoko at 5:03 AM on May 2, 2011

I don't think a world without Osama bin Laden will have less terrorism in it, but it will definitely have four more years of President Obama in it.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:47 PM on May 1 [92 favorites +] [!]

Seriously? Is this what you really think. ( also heard this on CNN this morning) Never mind the 3 years of economic fumbling, never mind the 3 years of Politics as usual. Never mind the complete lack of Hope and Change that some people voted for. Never mind the absolute disaster that his foreign policy has become... The effort to capture or kill OBL has been a 10 year effort confounded by Pakistan's inability to or non-desire to let us search in the most likely of places...Pakistan. Why would anyone think he was anywhere else? There are nearly a hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan. That's a good place to hide? Now finally when some CIA operative gets suspicious that two couriers live in a mansion and never take out the trash all of a sudden it is The big O who saved the day? Puleeze.
posted by Gungho at 5:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

I was teaching in a liberal NYC university on 9/11.

I heard not one word of apologetic discourse from students or even my most leftist colleagues. Lovecraft, I don't believe you.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:59 AM on May 2 [+] [!]

I don't think even the most eccentric activist living in NYC will have felt much sympathy for the attackers on 9/11. However, I can confirm that I myself was confronted at the time in Japan with some "alternative" US students who said similar things to what Lovecraft remembers.

I basically told them to go get stuffed.
posted by Skeptic at 5:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am not one to celebrate any death, even his. Having said that I understand where you all are coming from and hope you have a good party.
I would like to add two things, though:
1. The only likely concrete benefit of this will be that it will allow justification for a roll back of some of the worst parts of the war on terror
2. There is a least one American soldier who will never, ever, have to buy his own beer ever again.
A few parting thoughts:
I wonder if they decided beforehand who got to shoot him specifically.
Also, it's very interesting that they decided to bury him at sea. Very wise under the circumstances, I was discussing this with friends earlier, wondering whether they would burn him (like the soviets did to hitler) or unmarked grave or whatever.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 5:10 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I posted this over on Gamers With Jobs, but on rereading a couple hours later, I thought it was good enough to repeat here, so:

We would likely have been better off bringing him to justice. Part of trying to prove to the world that you're better than the bad guys is actually being better than the bad guys, and extrajudicial executions aren't exactly high on the feature list of 'good guy' governments.

On the ground, in the firefight, they may not have had a choice, but I'd still call this about the worst possible outcome. From best to worst, it would be bin Laden in prison, after being tried and convicted in a very public court; bin Laden free; bin Laden a martyr.

When you consider resources expended, twenty plane tickets and some flight school training on one side, versus trillions of dollars on the other, bin Laden didn't just win, he hit the all-time terrorism jackpot. By reacting the way we did, we damaged ourselves, absolutely literally, a million times worse than he ever could have.
posted by Malor at 5:11 AM on May 2, 2011 [15 favorites]

I was teaching in a liberal NYC university on 9/11.

I heard not one word of apologetic discourse from students or even my most leftist colleagues. Lovecraft, I don't believe you.

I was in Western Massachusetts. It was strange, because there were people who had personal connections to the attacks. I think everyone was pretty much in shock and falling back on whatever mental script they had prepared. I'm a very self-absorbed person, so I was thinking about a city I loved and a building I'd been in getting attacked.

It was just very bizzare.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:13 AM on May 2, 2011

Maybe it's just nostalgia talking, but I miss the days when Metafilter didn't echo the credulous, fawning false gravitas of the MSM so often.

That's a pity. One of the things I like about Metafilter's left bent is that various gradations of that, which challenge and inform my thought process.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:14 AM on May 2, 2011

On the ground, in the firefight, they may not have had a choice, but I'd still call this about the worst possible outcome. From best to worst, it would be bin Laden in prison, after being tried and convicted in a very public court; bin Laden free; bin Laden a martyr.

Yeah, the line I'm hearing in Australia is 'this will make him a martyr'. On one of the trashy current affairs shows their expert was saying something like "he couldn't have scripted it better himself". No idea how accurate that is, but I'm pretty sure every military culture has a soft spot for last stands/going out in a blaze of glory.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:15 AM on May 2, 2011

all of a sudden it is The big O who saved the day? Puleeze.

Are you suggesting that Presidents are elected based on some kind of rational weighing of a bunch of various factors that are accurately ascribed according to that President's responsibility for them? HAHAHAHA good one!

We would likely have been better off bringing him to justice.

I don't think so. We do not have a functioning media here. Can you imagine the jingoistic paroxysms that Fox News would whip themselves into? The unending spin wars over the smallest details, like OJ's trial but a million times worse as everything is spun against Obama? The painful way the rest of the media would align themselves in their various passive stenographer roles? The chance for Osama to get in front of cameras, perhaps even give martyr's speeches?

No, much much worse. If OBL really wanted to hurt America's image in the world, he should have turned himself in.
posted by fleacircus at 5:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'm just speculatin' here, but it seems to me Bush was probably not going to ever find him.

1. He was looking the wrong county. Not just a country where he wasn't, but a country he couldn't possibly be.
2. His intelligence department was in disarray due to his dumb ideology.
3. Him and his cronies were generally inept. I just have a strong suspicion that when you're smart, your intelligence is better.

Perhaps I am just biased though. Obama's victory stare got me pregnant with patriotism last night...IN MY HEART.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Lovecraft in Brooklyn -

At the time I occasionally corresponded with someone who was very liberal working at a college in CA - immediate after 9/11 she was very upset and worried, and wanting revenge... but about a week later her thinking had morphed to "We deserved it, and we shouldn't do anything in retaliation."

It was quite bizarre - I tried to get her to explain, but she wouldn't, said it was self-evident and I was stupid for not understanding why. Shortly after, we lost touch. Oddly, 10 years later, I've got no desire to even attempt to find her.
posted by JB71 at 5:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

all of a sudden it is The big O who saved the day? Puleeze.

Cast in the name of God. Ye not guilty.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Malor:We would likely have been better off bringing him to justice
Protecting bin laden in prison would probably cost in excess of $500 million. The court security precautions would probably cost the same. Same for his lawyer. You couldn't find an impartial judge or jury in America, so he would not have a fair trial for a start. Even if you had foreign judges.
Terrorist attacks would be sparked by his detention. Idealistic young radicals would do crazy things thinking it might help him, or he might see evidence of solidarity. It just wouldn't be possible.

Lovecraft In Brooklyn:'this will make him a martyr'
He would be a martyr figure regardless. Being shot point blank in the head in a million dollar mansion in a city with thousands of homeless, then unceremoniously buried in the sea is a pretty good outcome. It's much better than the martyr he would be if there was a public execution for example.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 5:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

I'm just speculatin' here, but it seems to me Bush was probably not going to ever find him.

4. There was probably speculation on how there would be retaliation on American soil if he was captured or killed. Less so if he went for Saddam.
posted by samsara at 5:19 AM on May 2, 2011

The chance for Osama to get in front of cameras, perhaps even give martyr's speeches?

I don't think any of the other reasons are sufficient to kill people. Our culture isn't working, so it's okay if we shoot people we don't like?

And as far as the quoted bit goes: anyone is entitled to defend themselves against the charges laid against them. And they wouldn't be martyr's speeches if we just locked him up. The Unabomber got his articles published, and it's not like we took any damage from it.

Everyone accused of a crime deserves a trial, no matter how terrible the accusation is. A society where pointing a finger is the sole required evidence to kill someone is a society that should be expunged from the earth.
posted by Malor at 5:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

By reacting the way we did, we damaged ourselves, absolutely literally, a million times worse than he ever could have.

Oh surely now he's martyr in the minds of many extremists and that's not good. Yet, consider the possibility Osama was never to be captured alive in the first place: he may have said too much, or known too much about too many powerful people, so a deposition could have been devastating for too many people, or just quite embarassing if somehow corroborated.

On the contrary, given that the hatred for Osama was quite rampant in the U.S. and possibily in other countries too, killing him satisfied the bloodlust of justifiably angry mobs while fitting within a simplistic, but widely accepted minimal conception of justice as "an eye for an eye".
posted by elpapacito at 5:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure every military culture has a soft spot for last stands/going out in a blaze of glory.

Slap a bucket on his head, and OBL could pass for Ned Kelly.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Osama Bin Laden is certainly going to be viewed as a martyr by a lot of people. But don't forget that those people are the same ones who would not have been convinced that any trial the US subjected him to was fair. They would think of all evidence as doctored, all charges trumped up. That's a battle there's no point even trying to win.

At this point, there is pretty much nothing the American government can do to redeem itself in the eyes of those people.

The whole burial at sea thing is already starting massive conspiracy theories, amongst otherwise level-headed people. Sigh. I really need to think through a cogent comment targeted towards those otherwise level-headed people. Something about "Is there any way they could have done it that you would have believed and/or been ok with?"
posted by bardophile at 5:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's no way that bin Laden will avoid being a martyr - a trial where he gets a chance to give rousing speeches, being sent to Guantanamo, being killed in his own compound, it all can be worked into a stirring narrative if you're so inclined. It shouldn't be the deciding factor in what happens to him.
posted by harriet vane at 5:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good riddance. Also, took 'em long enough.
posted by jonmc at 5:25 AM on May 2, 2011

Speaking as someone who lived through, and was personally and deeply affected by the events of that day, this resolves and fixes nothing.

I'm having difficulty finding the words, but I'm actually disgusted by the predictably stupid and jingoistic reactions to this. OBL was no doubt a zealot, and violent, addled and psychopathic actor who (in the unlikely event hell does exist) has earned an eternity in the lake of fire. But that Al Qaeda was actively seeking a way to murder Americans by the score was not exactly uncommon knowledge as of September 10, 2001. The system that failed to protect our countrymen from this clear and present danger, the people who in their bureaucratic pettiness and ignorance failed to put the pieces together, and the command and control ineptitude of the forces that might have minimized the damage by acting swiftly, still have not been held accountable for this.

That OBL is dead I'm sure is great in terms of sating the bloodlust of all those who were mostly unaffected by the activities of his minions. But the gigantic hole in my heart torn open that day is still a LONG way from being healed.

Peace out.
posted by psmealey at 5:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

OBL was already a martyr - it started the moment he went into hiding. I would submit that AQ has been prepared for this eventuality for a while. They'll pour a little tea on the ground and hang their heads a bit, and then get back to their plans for killing people.

In the grand scheme of things, this changes little for the bad guys, I think. Probably changes little for us both tactically and strategically as well. I could be wrong, but that's where my thinking is right now.

It's a nice piece of news for those who needed it, but I fear that there is little which will change as a result.
posted by Thistledown at 5:27 AM on May 2, 2011

Interesting quotes collected at ALE. I wish something like this was collected by a US-based news source, but that would be too much effort for them perhaps?

I've been cruising the various American news sources, typical that Fox News doesn't have Obama on the front page, but GWB is front and center with his remarks.

Our media is such a mess.
posted by jeanmari at 5:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

According to NPR, the SEALs were on a mission to kill Obama, not capture him.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:32 AM on May 2, 2011

Anybody have stats on how many times people have mixed up Obama and Osama so far?
posted by empath at 5:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

If you call him "bin Laden" instead of "Osama," you dramatically decrease the risk of talking about the president when you mean to talk about a terrorist.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

ObL is already a martyr. I doubt his stock can go any higher with his fanatics.

"Everyone accused of a crime deserves a trial"

Dear Pakistan, can we haz the guy you are actively hiding from us?

tia!
posted by bardic at 5:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, I (and I never thought I'd say this) am with fourcheesemac here. I know plenty of people far enough to the left to make the average MeFi user look like a Republican banker and none of them were apologists for these fuckos. Many of them would have killed OBL themselves given the chance. A military response was warranted, but Bush & Co both fucked it up royally and used it for their own ends.
posted by jonmc at 5:42 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

.

Not for OBL, but for pre-911 America. For the Country without a War on Terror. That War will never end, it is too valuable, and besides, who would ever make the pronouncement? So this morning I feel sad rather than jubilant, sad because I feel like my government has only strengthened and increased the strings it controls to jerk me around at their pleasure.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:43 AM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

ABC now has video from inside the compound in Abbottabad. It was apparently only 1,000 feet from the Pakistani Military Academy. They make linking a pain. Just hit abcnews.com and click play. (Warning: bloody footage.)
posted by fremen at 5:44 AM on May 2, 2011

:)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

bard: I've already run into the same problem with, as you say, otherwise level-headed people. I said I can think of a dozen reasons they buried him at sea other than him being secretly at a burger joint with elvis.

Malor: Everyone accused of a crime deserves a trial

I agree. But there are a lot of issues. Apart from logistics as I mentioned above, lets say this happened, he pleaded, and pleaded not guilty. What might his defence look like?

-Osama declared war. Therefore he could argue that what he did was legal as it was warfare.
#but he can't declare war, he's a person not a state..
-dozens of case involving ambigious distinctions between states and non-states, absense of case law otherwise, this itself could take years.
#but he killed civilians.
-He's a non state actor, therefore not party to the geneva convention.
#he killed american citizens, so regardless he's subject to american criminal charges
-evidence obtained via torture, inadmissable,
-intelligence community hardly neutral, has been after him for decades
-legality of attempted assassination of a foreign national without proper checks and balances?

Most likely Osama would commit various contempt of court offences, refuse to cooperate, speak at length (ie, what saddam did) , get sick for one reason or another, prompting an internationally appointed doctor, blah blah. With the issues above it's quite possible that a hypothetical impartial jury and fair trial would result in a not guilty plea.

That's just looking at one small facet of the issues relating to a criminal trial. I talked also about logistics, there's also diplomacy, economic effects, regional security, internal US politics (GOP would have a field day and Obama would be out of office pretty darn quick), NGO and UN interventions (proper treatment of prisoners etc), effects on the CT community, demoralization in the army, even desertion, people demanding the body be dealt with this way or that, people claiming it's an actor, people trying to track down the location of the courthouse, requirements for independent verification of DNA details.. don't forget as well that he would be tortured. extensively. he potentially has more useful information that ever person that has ever been into Gitmo. With two wars on, would they really leave that to chance? And yeah, they shouldn't torture, either, but they would.

I believe everyone deserves a fair trial. But I know the world is a complicated place. and I know that even "the right to a fair trial" is a complicated notion. What about access to competent lawyers? Impartial juries? You have plenty of people who do not get fair trials everyday.

When the world is a more perfect place ideals like a fair trial and free and open democracy will have less rough edges, but we won't be socially capable of truly achieving these and many other ideals in any significant sense for generations.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 5:49 AM on May 2, 2011

Revenge achieved, justice not quite.
posted by Atreides at 5:49 AM on May 2, 2011

The fucker took credit for killing thousands on global TV. Some of you guys think we needed a trial to off his sorry ass?

Nuts. To. That.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

Why does there appear to be a tiny cow mooing in that ABCnews video of the compound?
posted by Shike at 5:50 AM on May 2, 2011

For all of you saying justice has been served you are wrong. Actually the opposite has happened. Justice is what happens when you are arrested and put on trial in a court of law.

Bin Laden has had 10 years to hand himself in. Instead he decided to go out in a firefight. Suicide-by-cop is not "being murdered" and claiming otherwise is deeply disingenuous.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [22 favorites]

Suicide-by-cop is not "being murdered"

True, but assassination by Seal team six is.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The system that failed to protect our countrymen from this clear and present danger,....

It was a low tech sucker punch. If you're willing to kill yourself in the process, anything is possible. Seriously, how would you have stopped it?

I'm wondering if AL Qaeda is becoming un-hip anyway among the Muslim youth. ANy studies on this?

(Just learned this this morning, FWIW. PBS did not think it worth breaking into their regularly scheduled programming to let us know. Make of that what you will)
posted by IndigoJones at 5:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Only thing that's changed is a mass murderer and symbol for radical Islamists everywhere is dead. I suppose that's a start."

Baby steps. You gotta start somewhere.
posted by JB71 at 5:55 AM on May 2, 2011

typical that Fox News doesn't have Obama on the front page, but GWB is front and center with his remarks. Our media is such a mess.

The Fox page isn't your media. It's just a really big blog run by a rich old Australian. It's surprising he didn't run a picture of his cat.
posted by pracowity at 5:55 AM on May 2, 2011 [17 favorites]

Protecting bin laden in prison would probably cost in excess of $500 million. The court security precautions would probably cost the same. Same for his lawyer.

Argument: justice is expensive. Therefore, someone who's accused of something particularly grievous should be taken out behind the woodshed and shot.

Do you realize how ridiculous that argument sounds, when we are spending trillions on blowing up brown people vaguely associated with the man? There's plenty of money for violence, but none for civilization?

You couldn't find an impartial judge or jury in America, so he would not have a fair trial for a start. Even if you had foreign judges.

I don't think that's true. We could find impartial people if we were willing to look hard enough. Now, you might be right that we wouldn't bother, but it's perfectly possible.

Terrorist attacks would be sparked by his detention. Idealistic young radicals would do crazy things thinking it might help him, or he might see evidence of solidarity.

So now we should throw away justice because of crazy people? Terrorists should define how we live our lives?

Dude, you are already lost to the terrorists. In the battlefield of your mind, they have already won, and destroyed civilization. If they succeed at doing this enough times, the law and the justice system will fail. One could certainly argue that in many important ways, it already has.

Justice isn't something you provide only when it's convenient; you stick to the law even when it's a massive pain in the ass. Justice only for the popular isn't justice.

It just wouldn't be possible.

That is a pile of horseshit so deep you could drown in it.
posted by Malor at 5:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [20 favorites]

Osama bin Laden was a waste of DNA; I just hope his atoms don't end up in my can of tuna.
posted by bwg at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Suicide-by-cop is not "being murdered"

True, but assassination by Seal team six is.

I guess next time we'll just issue him a summons.
posted by empath at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Complicated world is complicated.
posted by proj at 5:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Suicide-by-cop is not "being murdered"

It's not suicide-by-cop when the cops are under explicit orders, and have flown halfway around the world, to kill you.
posted by Malor at 5:58 AM on May 2, 2011

Why do the "experts" keep referring to the location as a suburb, or a suburban location
outside of Islamabad? This is a city of 1 million people 35 miles to the north of the capital. Think Baltimore, which is a city about 35 miles north of DC.

THANK YOU! I couldn't think of what city to compare it with to give people a sense of how stupid the "outside Islamabad" framing is. It's far more relevant that it's less than a kilometre from Kakul, where the Pakistan Military Academy is. And that, other than the Academy cantonment, this town is essentially a holiday resort.
posted by bardophile at 5:58 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

empath: "I guess next time we'll just issue him a summons."

No we won't.
posted by bwg at 5:59 AM on May 2, 2011

For all of you saying justice has been served you are wrong. Actually the opposite has happened. Justice is what happens when you are arrested and put on trial in a court of law. Funny how murder is ok and celebrated when perpetrated by state actors. Either way American political theater is some schlocky shit.

Accused felon opens fire upon team sent to apprehend him, is killed, film at 11.

I think everyone would have liked to have him tried, including Obama. But the guy shot back. Flat out. He personally discharged his weapon at the team.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Imprisoning Bin Laden would not have been impossible. Arresting him, in a country where the US has no official military presence, without the full co-operation of the Pakistani authorities, and where bin Laden was evidently determined to go out guns blazing, appears to have been impossible. Some of you are upset that Special Forces is not a team of roving wizards who could have teleported bin Laden into a cell rather than responding to his gunfire.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:01 AM on May 2, 2011 [21 favorites]

Nothing changes. Today, we're in just as much danger from Al Qaeda as we were yesterday. American soldiers are still fighting Taliban in Afghanistan. TSA is still conducting Security Kabuki at our airports.

Only thing that's changed is a mass murderer and symbol for radical Islamists everywhere is dead. I suppose that's a start.

I disagree. As a symbol, he is an inspiration and recruiting tool. Now, he's dead, and is a symbol of defeat for those who would do this type of thing to anyone.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

True, but assassination by Seal team six is.
You're assuming their orders were to kill them? I'm clearly speculating here as I have no knowledge about it, but wouldn't it be more likely to me that their orders were to capture or kill him? Not that he was just going to come willingly, but what exactly do you expect?
posted by blue mustard at 6:02 AM on May 2, 2011

Well, what we're hearing EMRJKC, is that their explicit orders were to kill. Period. Not arrest, just kill.

If they were sent to arrest, and couldn't because he was firing back, I have no problem with the outcome. But I most certainly do if arrest was never even an option.
posted by Malor at 6:02 AM on May 2, 2011

Suicide-by-cop is not "being murdered"

It's not suicide-by-cop when the cops are under explicit orders, and have flown halfway around the world, to kill you.

Really? You read their orders? No making shit up. There is no meaningful discussion without facts.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I guess next time we'll just issue him a summons.

You mean like this.

I disagree. As a symbol, he is an inspiration and recruiting tool. Now, he's dead, and is a symbol of defeat for those who would do this type of thing to anyone.

Really? You don't know much about Islam do you.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:03 AM on May 2, 2011

I will say I knew colleagues (and as I recall, students) on the far left who were opposed to the overt patriotic displays that took over New York post 9/11. In some apartment buildings (mine included) the doormen and some tenants wanted to display American flags, and other tenants opposed this as jingoistic or inflammatory.

But really, I never heard anyone suggest seriously that an apology was the appropriate response to Bin Laden or the Arab world or Islam or the colonized global south in response to the attacks of 9/11. No one. And I too know a circle of people who are a good deal farther left than most mefites, or than I am certainly (and I went to nearly every major anti-war march in DC or New York for the last decade, although I style myself a left patriot, for what it's worth, and have a few libertarian chunks in my otherwise standard issue left academic worldview).

Really, never. I'm sure it's out there somewhere on some comment board or forum or in some crazy person's blog post, but this was not a conventional sentiment among academics or students and to suggest that it was amounts to something of a conservative slander that risks becoming one of those Big Lies so effectively used to demonize liberals.

I'm a lefty academic. I wanted to get a gun and go to Afghanistan myself and off that motherfucker after seeing what he did to my city. Instead, I turned my class for the remainder of that semester into a focus on Islam and Afghan culture. We could smell the smoldering towers in that classroom for the rest of the damn month. Don't tell me I wasn't paying attention.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [17 favorites]

or radical islam rather
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah but this isn't "suicide-by-cop". From Bin Laden's POV he was morally and ethically justified. Why should he turn himself in to the Evil Satan America for doing good deeds? It all kind of reads like a feud between the McCoy's and the Hatfields really. No one's objectively right except in their own eyes. I guess we're right-right because more people agreed that we were justified in what we did? Global politics is really pretty ugly. I suspect if you ask the average Chinese citizen/resident they're pretty happy with dissident suppression because man ain't China going gangbusters right now, hoo-ray central planning etc.

I'm mixed about this. A relieved sigh is about all I can spare beyond these thoughts, and mostly not because some guy is dead but because now there's maybe going to be a little less grar in the world. But then the cynic in me comes back and says, "man, now y'all have just pissed them off again."

And today in my new country we're having an argument between the forces of rationality and the forces of dogmatism. I mean, really? We have to have this discussion at all? Could humanity be any more irritating to me today? Cheering about some dead guy while screaming about high gas prices, too? Maybe if there were a middle-school brass band outside playing Beatles cover tunes endlessly.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:04 AM on May 2, 2011

As a symbol, he is an inspiration and recruiting tool.

Wait wait wait wait wait. You actually think that a dead bin Laden is a less effective inspiration and recruiting tool than a life one?

You know how this "martyrdom" bullshit works, right?
posted by shiu mai baby at 6:04 AM on May 2, 2011

I disagree. As a symbol, he is an inspiration and recruiting tool. Now, he's dead, and is a symbol of defeat for those who would do this type of thing to anyone.

IMO, they were already defeated when Egypt fell via largely non-violent action.
posted by empath at 6:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Justice isn't something you provide only when it's convenient; you stick to the law even when it's a massive pain in the ass. Justice only for the popular isn't justice.

If you open fire on a team sent to apprehend you, they can shoot back. This is the law in the United States of America. It always has been.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Malor: "Dude, you are already lost to the terrorist""

Hardly. If you want to make an ad hominen attack, however:
I never said we should throw away justice, I'm not a supporter of the patriot act, i'm actively against large parts of the war on terror (especially the self defeating parts).
However I also support some US military intervention overseas. I know there is some logic to going to war in Iraq, and Afghan. I can talk about credentials if you want.

But I'm not an idiot. I know that a trial of OBL in the USA would not work. That is a fact. Can you imagine the out come of a not guilty verdict? But by embracing a fair trial you accept that as a possibility.

I'm not saying this is a good state of affairs, I would be all for a possible world where Osama could get a fair trial in the US tomorrow without any problems. But that is not our world.
I would like everyone to have a fair trial too. But it doesn't always happen. In his case it could not happen.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:05 AM on May 2, 2011

If Osama was firing at US troops, yah, there is basically zero realistic chance of taking him alive.

I am a big fan of trials, convictions, and showing the right way of doing things. But... he spent the past decade claiming responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, and others thereafter. We said "dead or alive."

We didn't shoot Saddam on sight, did we?

War is messy. I could never be one of the people on this operation. (Not like I have the legal right to serve openly anyways - heyo!) But if somehow I was one of those special forces, I can't imagine any other way this could have happened.
posted by andreaazure at 6:05 AM on May 2, 2011

IMO, they were already defeated when Egypt fell via largely non-violent action.

Good point.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:05 AM on May 2, 2011

If they were sent to arrest, and couldn't because he was firing back, I have no problem with the outcome.

There you go. But there will never be any evidence that he did/didn't discharge the weapon, unless there is some sort of video of the operation.
posted by elpapacito at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2011

No one's objectively right except in their own eyes.

I think murdering 3000 innocent people is objectively wrong and forfeits your right to exist on this planet. Maybe I'm being crazy here.

(cue complaints about Bush, which I'm not unsympathetic to).
posted by empath at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

We were hypocrites before Bin Laden bit the dust. We'll be hypocrites tomorrow. We're hypocrites right now. All of us.

We're also human beings. Those who find this catharsis unseemly are tilting at windmills, although I think your contrarianism is important and a critique must emerge and be debated.

Tomorrow. Right now, human nature dictates that many of your fellow citizens, this one included, are going to enjoy the taste of a madman's blood.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

But I'm not an idiot. I know that a trial of OBL in the USA would not work. That is a fact. Can you imagine the out come of a not guilty verdict? But by embracing a fair trial you accept that as a possibility.

Not guilty? Dude went on TV and brazenly admitted it. I saw it.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also on another note:
Wikipedia entry for CIA's special activites direction has been amended to claim they were responsible. Been edited out of Australia of all places.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special_Activities_Division&diff=next&oldid=427028257
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2011

Oops sorry wrong forum. Link here
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:07 AM on May 2, 2011

Someone may have tweeted the attack (not knowing what was going on).
posted by drezdn at 6:09 AM on May 2, 2011

As a symbol, he is an inspiration and recruiting tool.

Trying to justify killing or not killing Bin Laden based on whether he's a symbol and what means doesn't matter.

He declared war on the US and was quite content to take part, in whatever way he could, in killing Americans and had already been successful in doing so. That's reason enough to send in kill squad for him.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:10 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

As a symbol, he is an inspiration and recruiting tool.

Trying to justify killing or not killing Bin Laden based on whether he's a symbol and what means doesn't matter.

He declared war on the US and was quite content to take part, in whatever way he could, in killing Americans and had already been successful in doing so. That's reason enough to send in kill squad for him.

More importantly, he was wanted for 3,000 counts of murder in the United States. Our attempt to seize him failed when he entered into a gun battle with the team sent to apprehend him.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Truly not concerned about bin Laden, haven't been for 5 years!
posted by QueerAngel28 at 6:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm coming incredibly late to this thread, to say that Bin Laden's death matters to me.

It matters because my twin brother, an army reservist, was recently deployed for the third time in 10 years. This time to cover the duties for a unit sent to Afghanistan. Every single deployment has had a disruptive effect on his life and the life of my family. Deployment #2 forced him to move the date of his wedding back two months.

Every single deployment has sent my mother into crisis mode. Every single time he is deployed I end up as the target of my mother's worry and wrath. I'm 37 years old, I shouldn't tolerate being a target. But I do, because it is means my brother is not, and he can focus on doing what he needs to do.

So I'm glad Bin Laden is dead. Because it means that my brother might be able to come home sooner. It means that once he retires from the reserves (he completes 20 years in at the end of 2011), we may be able to worry less about him being stop-lossed after his retirement (oh yes, they did this to reservists too). It means I can stop being a target.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 6:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hitler is dead ?????????
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guess next time we'll just issue him a summons.

What? You think Zombie Bin Laden is going to be more compliant than this one?
posted by mazola at 6:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

No, Hitler shares a nice condo in Buenos Aires with Walt Disney.
posted by bardic at 6:16 AM on May 2, 2011

Hitler is dead ?????????

At least they saved his brain.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:17 AM on May 2, 2011

Now, he's dead, and is a symbol of defeat for those who would do this type of thing to anyone.

Dude, he beat us cold. Stone cold. Twenty plane tickets and some flight school, and now we're in two wars, about a trillion dollars further in debt, we've got our own citizens being routinely stopped and checked for papers at airports, we're conducting routine, massive surveillance of the population, and we've got a bunch of people locked up forever without trials in a modern gulag.

There is no conceivable way he could have done any better. ONE GUY, and a few hundred followers, did all that.

bin Laden is the most successful terrorist in history. And WE made him successful; we played his game the way he wanted us to play it. We bought in hook, line, and sinker.

Knowing that America is run by a bunch of fucking idiots, there's going to be more smart guys like bin Laden that figure out that cheap little needle pricks like that will send us into frenzies of self-destruction.

It's been awhile since I ran the figures, but IIRC, we've now spent more on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in real terms, than we did on World War 2. For ONE GUY.

So, yes, by any rational measure bin Laden won. We all die in the end, but he caused his greatest enemy to do more damage to itself than probably any other single man in history. Hitler and Stalin combined might have made us spend more money than we spent on OBL, but he definitely beat Hitler, and may have beaten Stalin.

Yeah, it cost him his life, but I think he, and the people he has and will inspire, would consider that a nearly irrelevant price.
posted by Malor at 6:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [62 favorites]

Ironmouth: It's also the law of Pakistan. Of course, in that case, the team has to be Pakistani. An American law enforcement team doesn't really have any jurisdiction in Pakistan. If we want to be legalistic about this.

Actually, under US law, we can sure as hell can do it. And the Fourth Amendment does not apply.

US. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 US 259 (1990). He can be seized by US agents anywhere, any time.

In fact we have already done this before in Pakistan, with that guy who opened fire at the State Department in DC. DSS agents seized him in Pakistan.

See, this is where the US government starts to lose my sympathy, completely. If ANY country in the world were to say this about someone who was in the US, how would the US react? Just because the US government thinks they have a right to completely ignore another nation's sovereignty, it doesn't actually give them that right under international law. And since two nations are involved, one would think international law would be more relevant than American law. Not that the US would ever concede that supremacy.

That said,
a) of course the US will get away with this. They have the power to get away with it.
b) I'm not all that upset about this particular violation of sovereignty. But then, I can think of lots of situations where I don't think the letter of the law is of the utmost concern.
posted by bardophile at 6:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Way too many comments in the overnight hours for me to try and catch up before I go to bed. Even so, I wanted to add that, whatever other criticism may be justified, the President apparently didn't cynically save this as a political ace-in-the-hole.

It occurred to me that bin Laden wasn't going anywhere, nicely holed up in his fortified mansion as he was, and the President and his most trusted political advisors must have known this. The raid and subsequent announcement could have been put off for months. Perhaps even until late next year when it could have affected the outcome of the election. Instead, once the President was satisfied that the intelligence was legitimate and the operational goals achievable, he gave the order.

It remains to be seen how cynically this will be spun the usual suspects in the Beltway Establishment. Regardless, I like to believe that there wasn't any cynicism in the room when President Obama made the decision to attack immediately. Then again maybe I'm a little hung-over and still swooning from when he walked away from the podium like a boss.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Our attempt to seize him failed when he entered into a gun battle with the team sent to apprehend him.

Reports are that the SEAL team was sent to kill, not capture him. I'm personally ok with that, but it's seems pretty clear we were not trying to capture him at this point.

So, yes, by any rational measure bin Laden won.

I don't see a fundamental Muslim empire rising any time soon.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Part of me feels squicked about the chants of "USA!", but at the same time I was fairly far removed from the effects of 9/11 on a personal level so I'll try to keep from judging anyone for now.

I was pretty damn close to 9/11 on the personal level, and that squicked me out too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

As noted above, Hitlers body was burned by the Soviets, who had similar concerns to those that the American govt. had before they dumped his in the water somewhere.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:20 AM on May 2, 2011

What a weird day.
posted by ocherdraco at 6:21 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

It occurred to me that bin Laden wasn't going anywhere, nicely holed up in his fortified mansion as he was, and the President and his most trusted political advisors must have known this. The raid and subsequent announcement could have been put off for months.

This is insane. When you have your target, you strike. Can you imagine the shitstorm if they'd put it off until whenever and he'd got jittery and moved?
posted by unSane at 6:21 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I like how foxnews.com currently has Bush pictured, but not Obama.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Let me applaud Malor for playing devil advocate for Justice by complaing about the fact Osama was killed without a trial...

Indeed. I don't agree with him, but do welcome his and similar viewpoints. They're bringing up questions worth asking.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:24 AM on May 2, 2011

Let me applaud Malor for playing devil advocate for Justice by complaing about the fact Osama was killed without a trial; it's so unpopular a behavior and so interesting a cause it is arguably commendable in itself.

I think it would have been better. The speech indicated capture was a hope. However, he personally opened fire on our team. Therefore they shot back, killing him.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:25 AM on May 2, 2011

I hope they honestly tried to arrest him.
posted by pracowity at 6:25 AM on May 2, 2011

CBS is reporting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to speak momentarily regarding the death of Osama bin Laden.
posted by chemoboy at 6:25 AM on May 2, 2011

I think most of us, including Obama, would have preferred that he be captured alive (Even Bush and Cheney, I'm sure -- just think of the all the enhanced interrogation techniques they could have used!), but that was never a realistic option.
posted by empath at 6:25 AM on May 2, 2011

Apparently, Kim Jong Il pulled the trigger. Did they fly in on a TRUMP-brand chopper flown by the Donald?
posted by Shike at 6:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, yes, by any rational measure bin Laden won.
Sure, I'm inclined to agree. However that was a fait accompli a long time ago, and the fact that the US administration was at one point so fragile that one man and a hundred followers could lead to two wars says more about that administration and it's failings to follow legitimate intelligence leads and react to crises appropriately than it does about that one man.
There is no conceivable way he could have done any better
Well, yeah. There are, you just have to think about it for a little bit. Hell, even stronger alienation of the USA from it's allies.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:26 AM on May 2, 2011

I see lots of arguments that Bin Laden was successful because he caused all kinds of civil rights rollbacks in the US, and got us embroiled in multiple wars.

Somehow, that doesn't seem like the kind of thing he would have considered a success. If we had pulled out of the Middle East and stopped supporting Israel, he probably would've seen that as a success. But killing a bunch of Afghanis and Iraqis, and making international airflight mildly uncomfortable, and restricting the rights of American citizens to disagree with the President? Those seem like things he would have either not cared about, or actively disliked.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of disagreement about whether there were far lefties who supported the 9/11 attacks. But I'm seeing that disagreement coming from people who live in New York. I'm pretty sure that even if there were far lefties supporting 9/11 (I have no idea if there were or weren't), you wouldn't find them in New York. So saying "there were no lefties supporting Obama. I live in New York and I've never met one" is like saying "There are no deep sea blorgwhums. I live in Arizona, and I've never seen one.
posted by Bugbread at 6:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

See, this is where the US government starts to lose my sympathy, completely. If ANY country in the world were to say this about someone who was in the US, how would the US react?

Facts people! Facts! If you're gonna say something be sure it isn't abjectly false. The wingnuts went apeshit over this order:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release
December 17, 2009

Executive Order — Amending Executive Order 12425

EXECUTIVE ORDER
- – – – – – -
AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL
AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO
ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words “except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act” and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

BARACK OBAMA
posted by Ironmouth at 6:28 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Attention: I would like to use this opportunity to remind everyone here that I am more cynical than you are, that this also means I am more intelligent than you are as well as more sophisticated generally, and also that this is an excellent opportunity for me to score a few political points while irritating everyone I've decided I dislike. Which is all of you.

Thank you.

(P.S.: I'm better than you are)
posted by aramaic at 6:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [59 favorites]

Aramaic wins.
posted by Bugbread at 6:31 AM on May 2, 2011

Ironmouth: Ok, I was totally unaware of that change. Thanks for correcting me.
posted by bardophile at 6:31 AM on May 2, 2011

I like how foxnews.com currently has Bush pictured, but not Obama.

well, to be fair, it's going to take them a few days to figure out an angle in which they can give reagan the credit for it.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 6:32 AM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

Wrong thread, aramaic. You want the meta about brilliant yet unfavorited posts. Or maybe the one about Scott Adams.
posted by Ahab at 6:33 AM on May 2, 2011

not sure i get all the rah-rah-usa celebrating. i mean, it took the greatest military power on the face of the earth 10 years to kill one geriatric goatfucker. i'm glad we finally did, but dancing in the streets?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 6:36 AM on May 2, 2011

People are whizzing through the thread so just so everybody sees it, reports are that the SEAL team was ordered to kill bin Laden, not capture him. Kill only.
posted by scalefree at 6:36 AM on May 2, 2011

it took the greatest military power on the face of the earth 10 years to kill one geriatric goatfucker.

I don't think it's because we weren't able. It's because those in power didn't want it to happen so they could keep exploiting the situation.
posted by jonmc at 6:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

reports are that the SEAL team was ordered to kill bin Laden, not capture him. Kill only.
link?
posted by blue mustard at 6:39 AM on May 2, 2011

As Obama administration officials described it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.

Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated. Still, it was not until August when they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital.

C.I.A. analysts spent the next several weeks examining satellite photos and intelligence reports to determine who might be living at the compound, and a senior administration official said that by September the C.I.A. had determined there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there. It was hardly the spartan cave in the mountains where many had envisioned Bin Laden to be hiding. Rather, it was a mansion on the outskirts of the town’s center, set on an imposing hilltop and ringed by 12-foot-high concrete walls topped with barbed wire.

The property was valued at $1 million, but it had neither a telephone nor an Internet connection. Its residents were so concerned about security that they burned their trash rather putting it on the street for collection like their neighbors. American officials believed that the compound, built in 2005, was designed for the specific purpose of hiding Bin Laden.
posted by mediareport at 6:39 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ironmouth: Ok, I was totally unaware of that change. Thanks for correcting me.

Note that it amends an executive order in force since 1982. I suspect that one is just a rehash of prior ones.

Note that Pakistan was in on this from the beginning. They weren't in the final team, but they were in on it.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:40 AM on May 2, 2011

reports are that

Would you mind linking those, scalefree? The thread could use more links and facts and less opinioneering.
posted by mediareport at 6:41 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Facebook comment from Serbian friend: "Interesting how it is announced just one day after killing of Gaddaffi son and grandsons and couple of days after historical Hamas-Fatah agreeement.:) "

This makes me wonder how sheltered we (US) are from other perspectives ... 'other' including those who have learned to view such news with even more cynicism than we can imagine.
posted by Surfurrus at 6:43 AM on May 2, 2011

ote that Pakistan was in on this from the beginning. They weren't in the final team, but they were in on it.

Yes, that's true. And they've tacitly approved much worse in terms of letting national sovereignty go down the tubes.

Its residents were so concerned about security that they burned their trash rather putting it on the street for collection like their neighbors.

umm. In Pakistan, burning trash is so common that there are city ordinances against it, but they get constantly ignored. Like jaywalking, for example. Some people do it within their compounds, some outside. This in itself says nothing about security consciousness.
posted by bardophile at 6:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reuters: U.S. team's mission was to kill bin Laden, not capture.
posted by scalefree at 6:45 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

About the White House crowd....that crowd included a lot of GW students. There isn't a ton of residential space right by the WH, but there *is* a fairly large university. The GW student body contains a lot of (1)political wonk types (2)NY/NJ/CT-ers (3)conservatives and (4) assholes. It's unfortunate that so many cameras were around for that crowd, it's really not a fair representation of the city at large.

GW alum here (ugh, I know)
posted by troika at 6:45 AM on May 2, 2011

Ironmouth: Ok, I was totally unaware of that change. Thanks for correcting me.

Note that it amends an executive order in force since 1982. I suspect that one is just a rehash of prior ones.

Note that Pakistan was in on this from the beginning. They weren't in the final team, but they were in on it.

I have to retract that. Obama thanked the President of Pakistan, leading me to believe they did know. But NYT says Obama kept it from Pakistan the entire time.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:45 AM on May 2, 2011

This "no telephone & no internet" thing is puzzling to me. I personally know several geeks who could get me set up with really, really secure internet, and I think it wouldn't take me more than one hop to get to someone who could spell out some more some more or less uncrackable encryption and data security practices.

You forget the weakness in that system. The humans operating it. They could spill the wrong info, talk on an insecure line or, or someone forwards an E-mail. You have no internet so there are zero mistakes.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ok, looks like an unnamed "U.S. national security official" said it to Reuters:

"This was a kill operation," the official said, making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan.

I'm sure the longform New Yorker article in a half-year or so will clear all of it up.
posted by mediareport at 6:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Malor, I completely agree with you on the topic of OBL's success in screwing with America. The deep sadness in me today is not because of 911's aftermath so much as the realization that America is not the country that I was raised to revere. We are the land of The Free (and the brave and the sensible and the gosh-darn-it-good-guys who don't ever torture) except when we feel threatened-- and then all that stuff goes out the window including the inalienable rights of American Citizens. And we lick the boots of our authoritarian rulers and proclaim that We Have Nothing to Hide so bring on the scanners and the wire taps and the demands for ID. This is not the country I was promised in the movies.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Here is a kind thought to the man that gave his life mortally wounding the american dragon.

...I don't recall any mention of a dragon being found amongst the dead in either the Pentagon, Flight United 93, or the Twin Towers.

Only several thousand innocent people.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:48 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

uncrackable encryption and data security practices.

Hm, uncrackably encrypted traffic emanating from a walled enclave in Islamabad. They could just paint a big target on the roof, alternatively.
posted by unSane at 6:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

ironmouth, good point. they had a bit of a scare with sat phones c. 2002-2003, so I suppose it made sense to be very cautious. And using the same "trusted courier" year after year illustrates the human weakness in the system. (Not that he was weak, but that he, as an identifiable human, was trackable.)
posted by lodurr at 6:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"some more some more or less uncrackable encryption and data security practices." Yeah, for you. What about the people who ring you or communicate with you online? If they have a security hole physical psychological or electronic and get caught your sophisticated security is worth zilch. On preview as Ironmouth and unSane said.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:50 AM on May 2, 2011

About the Internet thing, remember that OBL almost got killed because the NSA targeted his sat phone back before 9/11. So I can understand him being leery of any technology in the compound.
posted by scalefree at 6:50 AM on May 2, 2011

uncrackably encrypted traffic emanating from a walled enclave in Islamabad.

Hide it in bad packets. The networks probably suck around there. Or set up a network of UWB relays to points a few hundred meters away. Probably not too expensive.

But the social engineering objection trumps any of these strategies, so I'm just riffing.
posted by lodurr at 6:52 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A thousand feet from the military academy is just extraordinarily close. That's 330 yards, well under the distance it's possible to throw a boomerang or a Frisbee.
posted by unSane at 6:53 AM on May 2, 2011

From the paucity of favorites in the lower half of this thread, I assume everyone else has like me, hit their favorite limit for the day?
posted by orthogonality at 6:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yep, that's where they fucked up. They should have set up an insecure internet connection and downloaded thousands of YouTube videos of cats playing the piano. Or whatever it is people usually download in walled million dollar compounds in Pakistani towns.

This part I do find confusing. This place could hardly have been unknown to the Pakistani security service, at least.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:55 AM on May 2, 2011

the sat phone thing was before 9/11? I thought it was after. anyway.

(we have a favorites limit?)
posted by lodurr at 6:55 AM on May 2, 2011

fourcheesemac: "I will say I knew colleagues (and as I recall, students) on the far left who were opposed to the overt patriotic displays that took over New York post 9/11. In some apartment buildings (mine included) the doormen and some tenants wanted to display American flags, and other tenants opposed this as jingoistic or inflammatory.

But really, I never heard anyone suggest seriously that an apology was the appropriate response to Bin Laden or the Arab world or Islam or the colonized global south in response to the attacks of 9/11. No one. And I too know a circle of people who are a good deal farther left than most mefites, or than I am certainly (and I went to nearly every major anti-war march in DC or New York for the last decade, although I style myself a left patriot, for what it's worth, and have a few libertarian chunks in my otherwise standard issue left academic worldview).

Really, never. I'm sure it's out there somewhere on some comment board or forum or in some crazy person's blog post, but this was not a conventional sentiment among academics or students and to suggest that it was amounts to something of a conservative slander that risks becoming one of those Big Lies so effectively used to demonize liberals.

I'm a lefty academic. I wanted to get a gun and go to Afghanistan myself and off that motherfucker after seeing what he did to my city. Instead, I turned my class for the remainder of that semester into a focus on Islam and Afghan culture. We could smell the smoldering towers in that classroom for the rest of the damn month. Don't tell me I wasn't paying attention."

I could smell it from my house. I say go back and torpedo his remains to be sure. No apologies here.
posted by Splunge at 6:55 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A Gay Girl in Damascus posts an old writing piece of hers. It seems appropriate.
posted by chemoboy at 6:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Facebook comment from Serbian friend: "Interesting how it is announced just one day after killing of Gaddaffi son and grandsons and couple of days after historical Hamas-Fatah agreeement.:) " This makes me wonder how sheltered we (US) are from other perspectives ... 'other' including those who have learned to view such news with even more cynicism than we can imagine.

Funny, it makes me wonder how many of the Mideast's problems can be traced to a fatal love of conspiracy theories. Makes it hard to think clearly or act decisively.
posted by msalt at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it cost him his life, but I think he, and the people he has and will inspire, would consider that a nearly irrelevant price.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. For all the talk of virgins or raisins or whatever, he himself seemed pretty determined to remain among the living. As to his inspirationees, this is at least an eye opener. If you know there's no back out clause or retirement for your actions, that even the galumphing US government has a memory and some reach, it might make the more thoughtful would be terror recruit think twice about getting involved. Not all of them, of course, but some.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2011

Has anyone linked to the google map of the house?
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks Bugbread, now I lost The Game.
posted by furtive at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Interesting how people who've been around here long enough to know better can't keep themselves from feeding the troll.

Well we're good like that. Despite what a troll is and does, we can't just stand by and let one starve. And many of us don't really believe in trolls and think that the term is far to often a cop out.
posted by juiceCake at 6:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Listening to NPR :evidently one of the clues that it might be Bin Laden was that just a large mansion had no internet to it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This place could hardly have been unknown to the Pakistani security service, at least.

NPR's pet experts seemed this a.m. to be assuming it was very known to the ISI and people inside the military. I get the impression people on the ground for CIA have been treating this as essentially similar to working with one crime boss to get another: You have to take what they tell you with a shitload of salt, and watch your back like crazy.
posted by lodurr at 6:59 AM on May 2, 2011

SLoG, I understand, or at least I think I do. Maybe it's just the contrast between reality and what you tell children, but it seems that in the post-911 world, the America we've got has been sliding further and further away from the one I was promised I'd grow up and get to live in.

I don't know how much of that is simply growing up and realizing the world is much more complex than I thought, or if it was growing up and making those realizations during this particular part of history. I'll never know, either.
posted by cmyk at 6:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

orthogonality: Must be, I'm dropping some serious wisdom bombs in here.
I've noticed that after a thread hits a couple hundred comments or so people just start skimming. Personally if I wasn't in the thread from the beginning I'd just read the comments with double digits favourites and skip the rest.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 6:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bin Ladens Final Video

.
posted by marienbad at 7:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Please keep in mind that the operation was performed by American troops at great personal risk. This could have been accomplished by vaporizing the entire compound with a targeted strike, placing nearby civilians at risk. I think this shows a fair amount of forbearance and judgement. This is not an episode of Cops, which could have been accomplished with a knock on the door and a tussle.
posted by Shike at 7:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Has anyone linked to the google map of the house?

I want the street view.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

In Pakistan, burning trash is so common [...] This in itself says nothing about security consciousness.

In itself, nothing. But as part of a guy trying to be very secretive, we have: very high and compartmented walling with barbed wire on top, few windows facing out, no garbage coming out, no electronic communication lines coming, and double security gates. If he wasn't burning his garbage, so that anyone with access to DNA testing could pick through it and determine who lived there, it would say a lot.
posted by pracowity at 7:00 AM on May 2, 2011

Funny, it makes me wonder how many of the Mideast's problems can be traced to a fatal love of conspiracy theories. Makes it hard to think clearly or act decisively.

Not to be confused with OBL's death being the clear and decisive act of *Victory over [insert your jingoism here]* ?

/sarcasm
posted by Surfurrus at 7:01 AM on May 2, 2011

Is the death photo real? grauniad article
posted by marienbad at 7:01 AM on May 2, 2011

Obama says he made Osama his #1 priority for the CIA.

Would this be style over substance?
posted by IndigoJones at 7:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I don't know how much of that is simply growing up and realizing the world is much more complex than I thought, or if it was growing up and making those realizations during this particular part of history. I'll never know, either."

I suspect a lot of it is growing up. The same kinds of complaints about the government, freedom of speech, torture, etc., were common in the lyrics of hardcore punk bands (Dead Kennedys, etc.) back in the early 80s.
posted by Bugbread at 7:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The prime minister of the Gaza Strip government calls the Al Qaeda terrorist leader a "holy warrior."
posted by rosswald at 7:05 AM on May 2, 2011

Is the death photo real? grauniad article

It was discussed further up thread, but probably not. If it is real then it's been floating around the Internet for about 3 years, and I don't even want to think about what that would mean.
posted by codacorolla at 7:06 AM on May 2, 2011

NPR has been reporting all morning that Seal Team Six was sent to kill, not capture, Bin Laden.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:06 AM on May 2, 2011

n itself, nothing. But as part of a guy trying to be very secretive, we have: very high and compartmented walling with barbed wire on top, few windows facing out, no garbage coming out, no electronic communication lines coming, and double security gates.

Honestly, the only thing amongst those that would stand out, as in, I would wonder about it if I noticed, is the electronic communication lines. Going about your daily business in Lahore (city of ~7 million), you'd see any number of compounds that fit this description. It really wouldn't be much cause for comment. And I don't think I would distinguish between an electric cable and a communications line. This is just me, average bystander. I make no claims about what the intelligence agencies did or did not know. Just that locals may well have thought it was some random rich person with enemies. As I quoted up-thread, strange foreign types.
posted by bardophile at 7:07 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Funny, it makes me wonder how many of the Mideast's problems can be traced to a fatal love of conspiracy theories. Makes it hard to think clearly or act decisively.
posted by msalt at 9:57 AM on May 2 [+] [!]

In the USA, if somebody were to tell us that a shadowy foreign power is pulling the strings behind a presidential candidate, we would laugh and call the guy crazy, because that's never happened before. But that sort of thing has happened in, for example, Iran before. So it's not really surprising that Iranians (again, for example) would be more willing to believe in conspiracies like that.

I am saddened and yet impressed by the simultaneous truth of these two comments.
posted by bardophile at 7:10 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I hope they honestly tried to arrest him.

Does anybody here really think that he wouldn't have faced the death penalty if they had?

Seriously, while the humanist in me hopes you're right, the pragmatist can't help but see this as a win for everybody. The US administration avoids a show trial which could be a major propaganda op for the likes of Ahmadinejad. OBL goes out in what passes for a blaze of glory, without suffering the humiliation of being discovered living conveniently close to the cinema and the golf club. Everyone else gets a moment of cathartic closure, instead of a grotesque theatre of justice, which would in all likelihood have caused yet more pain for the bereaved of New York, Madrid, London, Bombay and anywhere else that Al-Qaida went for.

Yeah, it cost him his life, but I think he, and the people he has and will inspire, would consider that a nearly irrelevant price.

Bin Laden was as much a fearsome bogeyman for the neocons to pursue their agenda as he was a poster boy for radical Islam. He used that position very skillfully to consolidate his standing as an inspirational figure, and they in turn used him to justify their adventurism in other parts of the Middle East. But he's been loosing relevance for a long time - when Tunisia and Egypt changed hands, Al-Qaida were nowhere to be seen.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 7:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I like how foxnews.com currently has Bush pictured, but not Obama.

Same with CNN.

MSNBC has Obama's picture for the video from last night of the announcement.
posted by cashman at 7:12 AM on May 2, 2011

He's dead, yay. Can we stop squandering trillions on endless wars now? Maybe repeal USA PATRIOT? End extraordinary rendition? Close Guantanamo? No? Then I hope you'll pardon me for not cheering. It's nice that he's dead, though I'd have vastly preferred captured and put on trial (a real trial mind, not a military kangaroo court). But ultimately this doesn't seem to change anything at all.

Much as I hate to say it, back in 2002 Bush jr was right. OBL is irrelevant to what's been going on since 9/11.

As far as a lack of internet/phone service goes, I think it makes a lot of sense. I read a while back that Mafia bosses do the same. Not so much for fear of anyone tracking them, but becuase they're afraid the convenience will mean that some day someone will slip up and say something they shouldn't on the phone.

As with so many things in the computer/information security field, it all comes down to human interaction.
posted by sotonohito at 7:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

U.S. Forces Were Unsure Bin Laden in House Until Meeting Him Face to Face
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Re: 'conspiracy theories' -- I find it a bit more compelling to imagine that Obama could have planned this date of attack on OBL around sticky front page issues like "deaths of Gaddaffi son and grandsons and the historical Hamas-Fatah agreement"

Especially as opposed to the previously suggested coincidental anniversaries (Mission Accomplished, Hitler ... etc.) ... oh yeah ... the idea that he did it to trump Trump's tv show (!)

I find it very compelling to read the rumblings of non-US people who not swept up in the 'joyous celebration'. Conspiracy theory or not, I wonder if the 'whispering' could reflect more than is on the surface about the US's really messy reputation in ongoing conflicts. (Real conflicts - not the 'boogie man' kind)
posted by Surfurrus at 7:18 AM on May 2, 2011

kmz: "From a friend's Facebook (CS geek, in case it wasn't obvious):
rm -rf /bin/laden"
wouldn't it be kill -9 ... wait. it's not really -9, since it took 10 fucking years! NVM...
posted by symbioid at 7:19 AM on May 2, 2011

Can you imagine all the intell that they'll find in OBL's residence?

I did not see this mentioned yet. Apologies if it has already been mentioned.
posted by futz at 7:20 AM on May 2, 2011

There is a tiny part of me that feels a little sorry for any of the people who made FPP's within the few hours before or after this, because this is one hell of an upstage.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

ABC, meanwhile, says: "U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself fired his weapon during the fight, and that he was asked to surrender but did not. He was shot in the head and then shot again to make sure he was dead."
posted by aramaic at 7:20 AM on May 2, 2011

Can you imagine all the intell that they'll find in OBL's residence?

I did not see this mentioned yet. Apologies if it has already been mentioned.

NPR mentioned that the team did indeed search for intel, but didn't say what, if anything was found.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:23 AM on May 2, 2011

> Obama wins the election

If this was staged *AND* "the real Usama" (whatever passes for reality in a world of stage managed propaganda) shows up, that worm would turn real fast.

>TSA/DHS go away

Let TSA keep groping pre-teens and enforcing 'pointless' rules so the TSA becomes more of a source of controversy and before the election, as a ratings booster the TSA will go away.

Given King's See something Say Something Act - the DHS acts as a social control and I doubt it'll go away.
posted by rough ashlar at 7:23 AM on May 2, 2011

Much as I hate to say it, back in 2002 Bush jr was right. OBL is irrelevant to what's been going on since 9/11.

Stopped clock is right twice a day. Some might feel that Bush only said that only because he couldn't find Bin Laden.
posted by inigo2 at 7:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow.

On CBS, Jere Van Dyk, who was held captive by the Taliban for 45 days, struggled to maintain his composure as he recalled how his captors had boasted, "You will never find Bin Laden."

posted by milestogo at 7:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

CSPAN just gave a really good rundown of events. It was detailed and precise. I hope whatever he's reading from appears in print. The phrase "he ordered the force to fly to the region" should appear in it, for searchers.

And then unfortunately they followed it up with somebody named Dwight talking about fox news, lewinsky, rumors from 1998 and just rambling on and on. Thankfully the host moved on to the next person, Susan, who decided to come on and thank....Bush. Then a Veteran came on and thanked Clinton, Bush and President Obama.
posted by cashman at 7:26 AM on May 2, 2011

1. I think it was hysterical Wolf Blitzer was all "I dont' want to confirm or speculate but this news I can confirm that it is going to be monumental." (in short beating around the bush not letting the cat out of the bag).

Switch over to his correspondant "Osama is dead." You know Wolf was all "way to go asshole."

2. This is all great but it still won't stop the hate, terrorism, or fueling their fire. Unless it caused MidEast peace, I just can't see the significance beyond revenge and justice for 9/11. Not to say that isn't important but still, to me the overall goal and celebration is to stop the hate.
posted by stormpooper at 7:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can you imagine all the intell that they'll find in OBL's residence?

I did not see this mentioned yet. Apologies if it has already been mentioned.

Huh. That's got me thinking along lines that hadn't even occurred to me before: how, specifically, does the post-takedown occur? Ok, you've shot Bin Laden, and the folks with him. You've checked the rooms to make sure there is nobody else hiding in a closet. I guess you put the corpse on the helicopter. Do you go through the house looking for safes and lockboxes? There is no Internet, but do you go looking for laptops just in case? What if there are huge amounts of papers? You probably couldn't fit multiple bookcases on the helicopter. Do you leave them? Do you leave a few SEALs to occupy the building? Wouldn't that be troublesome when the police arrive, hearing the gunfire?

I mean, up to killing the target, it's fairly easy to imagine SWAT-team like stuff, but unlike the SWAT team, this happened outside US jurisdiction, so you can't just close off the compound for a few weeks while you comb for evidence...
posted by Bugbread at 7:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This appears to be the location of the compound on Google Maps. Note the Military Academy to the southeast.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:28 AM on May 2, 2011

More importantly, he was wanted for 3,000 counts of murder in the United States. Our attempt to seize him failed when he entered into a gun battle with the team sent to apprehend him.

IMO this is waaay too shaded to credulity in the official story. The only thing I trust about the story is that OBL got plugged yesterday. Everything else is contingent fact, subject to revision, and pronouncements on what did or did not happen are sheer bullshitting unless you have some TS clearances you aren't talking about.
posted by mokuba at 7:28 AM on May 2, 2011

> Usama 9/11 fbi most wanted

Is there any reason STILL why USAMA BIN LADEN on the FBI page was never listed as wanted for the 9/11 attacks?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:28 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

PMA = Pakistani Military Academy
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:28 AM on May 2, 2011

This "no telephone & no internet" thing is puzzling to me. I personally know several geeks who could get me set up with really, really secure internet, and I think it wouldn't take me more than one hop to get to someone who could spell out some more some more or less uncrackable encryption and data security practices.
You forget the weakness in that system. The humans operating it. They could spill the wrong info, talk on an insecure line or, or someone forwards an E-mail. You have no internet so there are zero mistakes.

"No telephone & no internet" (and burning trash) is also puzzling to me, but not because I think that "really secure" stuff could be set up. Rather, because it calls attention to you.

Get the internet. Just a normal internet connection, not something "really secure". Use it to do innocuous things. Browse lolcats. Order pizza on your normal phone. Put that pizza box out in the trash, without burning it.

I kind of suspect that (were I so minded) I could have successfully hid Bin Laden in my suburban American house without much difficulty, for at least as long as he holed up in his compound and burned his garbage.
posted by Flunkie at 7:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

It would have been better to bring him to trial, but I'll take this result. Hope it means the tropps can come home and those that have lost loved ones can find peace.
posted by arcticseal at 7:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The only thing I trust about the story is that OBL got plugged yesterday.

As you've expressed doubt on other things, what makes you believe this thing?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:30 AM on May 2, 2011

Good job Navy Seals. Excellent work.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 7:31 AM on May 2, 2011

@Bugbread, "how, specifically, does the post-takedown occur?" - It looks like the Pakistani Military took over that part, based on the photos I've seen coming across the wire, they're packing up trucks full of stuff from the compound (see
photo 33 here, sorry for self-link).
posted by kokogiak at 7:32 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The whole burial at sea thing is already starting massive conspiracy theories, amongst otherwise level-headed people.

I thought it was a bit odd too, until it was pointed out that it prevents there from ever being any kind of burial shrine that can be used as a symbol to him. My guess is that in the hours after the death, they documented the hell out of everything with video, photos, and physical evidence so that there can be no questions later, at which point the actual body becomes somewhat irrelevant.
posted by quin at 7:32 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

..........
..........

For all the innocent people killed around the world by the USA 1946 - present.

I seriously cannot belive people were outside the whitehouse chanting "usa usa" like they had won a football match.
posted by marienbad at 7:33 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

He's dead, yay. Can we stop squandering trillions on endless wars now? Maybe repeal USA PATRIOT? End extraordinary rendition? Close Guantanamo? No? Then I hope you'll pardon me for not cheering

Well said. This is exactly what I've been trying to get across to some of my buddies who are still lost in jingoland. It's kind of a tough sell today.
posted by Aquaman at 7:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

As you've expressed doubt on other things, what makes you believe this thing?

technically, he could have been on ice and wheeled out for this event I suppose, but that's just a bridge too far to me based on the evidence.

And if OBL isn't actually dead, the ball is in his court now to show up the administration.

There are "confidence limits" in any official story, ya know?
posted by mokuba at 7:35 AM on May 2, 2011

I kind of suspect that (were I so minded) I could have successfully hid Bin Laden in my suburban American house without much difficulty, for at least as long as he holed up in his compound and burned his garbage.

Sort of Edward Scissorhands-style?
posted by notyou at 7:35 AM on May 2, 2011

marienbad -- just curious, but why 1946 to present? Was every previous death justifiable, while everything post WWII an act of evil?
posted by Think_Long at 7:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ah, the guy on C-Span is reading from Mike Allen's Politico report. This is fascinating excerpt:

EXCLUSIVE – THE TICK-TOCK: INSIDE THE SITUATION ROOM – Obama rejected original plan for bombing; wanted proof – Navy SEALS held two rehearsals last month, with war cabinet monitoring from White House – Raid planned for Saturday but pushed off a day because of weather – Chopper stalled as it hovered over the compound – Forces blew it up and left in a reinforcement craft -- How the fiery raid went down, as told to Playbook by senior administration officials: The compound -- about an acre, with a three-story house – is in Abbottabad, a suburb of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Officials were very suspicious of the 12- to 18-foot-high walls, and seven-foot wall on the upper balcony. Residents burned their trash, and there was no telephone or Internet connection to the compound, valued at $1 million. But officials never had anything directly proving that Osama bin Laden was living there. The U.S. had discovered the compound by following a personal courier for bin Laden. Officials didn’t learn his name until 2007, then it took two years to find him and track him back to this compound, which was discovered in August 2010. “It was a “Holy cow!” moment,” an official said.

The original plan for the raid was to bomb the house, but President Obama ultimately decided against that. “The helicopter raid was riskier. It was more daring,” an official said. “But he wanted proof. He didn’t want to just leave a pile of rubble.” Officials also knew there were 22 people living there, and Obama wanted to be sure not to kill all the civilians. So he ordered officials to come up with an air-assault plan. The forces held rehearsals of the raid on April 7 and April 13, with officials monitoring the action from Washington.

As the actual raid approached, daily meetings were held of the national security principals, chaired by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and their deputies, chaired by John Brennan, the president’s counterterrorism adviser. At an April 19 meeting in the Situation Room, the president approved the assault, in principle, as the course of action. He ordered the force to fly to the region to conduct it. On April 28, just after his East Room announcement that CIA Director Leon Panetta would be succeeding Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, the president held another meeting in the Situation Room, and went through everyone’s final recommendations. He didn’t announce his decision at that time, but kept his counsel overnight.

At 8:20 a.m. Friday, the president informed National Security Adviser Tom Donilon that he was authorizing the operation.

A lot more at the link.
posted by cashman at 7:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [27 favorites]

you can't just close off the compound for a few weeks while you comb for evidence...
posted by Bugbread at 18:27 on May 2 [+] [!]

Actually, you probably could. The gardener at my mother-in-law's house only moonlights as a gardener. Really he works for a fumigation company. He has a repeat contract to do work on what is pretty much an American military base in Pakistan. He's been doing this work for at least the past six years, probably longer. I don't think American forces would have any trouble getting permission to sift through what is now an empty compound (in terms of people), for evidence.
posted by bardophile at 7:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Am I the only one that believes--in hindsight--that the release of the President's birth certificate one day before he completely reshuffles his security team at the highest level to be one of the biggest fake-outs in modern American politics?
posted by PapaLobo at 7:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

think Long - No - i ran out of dots. Seriously, I use the period 56-present as that seems to be when the worst of it has happened (East Timor anyone?)
posted by marienbad at 7:38 AM on May 2, 2011

I'm going to take a shot at writing Jon Stewart's opening monologue for tonight:

"For years he's been one of the most recognizable villains on the world stage. A man with immense wealth and influence, known for spreading propaganda denying the legitimacy of the American government. But at last, on Saturday night, President Obama took him down."

[roll tape]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

"No telephone & no internet" (and burning trash) is also puzzling to me, but not because I think that "really secure" stuff could be set up. Rather, because it calls attention to you.

I keep telling you, no it doesn't. An awful lot of people don't bother with landlines in Pakistan. I doubt they had cellphones, either, but there wouldn't have been any visible evidence of those from the outside, anyway, and that's what most people would assume they used, if they thought about it. Electronic communication lines are not nearly as ubiquitous in Pakistan as they are in the US, or, I would imagine, most of Europe. Not having an internet connection is not really bizarre.
posted by bardophile at 7:42 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Aquaman Eh, people will feel what they feel. You can't control another person's emotions, and if they want to feel jubilant I say let 'em. I don't, and I won't make any secret that I don't, but I'm not going to tell anyone else that they're wrong for feeling elated.

Trying to channel that jubilation into productive ends is probably a better approach than the cynicism I expressed in my post here.

futz I rather doubt there is much. Not so much because OBL had good operational security, though presumably he did, but because Al Qaeda isn't really a tightly organized group, it's more of a semi-random mob like Anonymous.

Same as Moot doesn't have much to do with what Anonymous does, neither does OBL have much to do with what Al Qaeda does. He was doubtless more active in shaping the overall goal of the "organization" than Moot is, but as far as individual ops go, I doubt he was much involved. He was the idea guy, not the executing ideas guy.
posted by sotonohito at 7:43 AM on May 2, 2011

Everyone accused of a crime deserves a trial, no matter how terrible the accusation is. A society where pointing a finger is the sole required evidence to kill someone is a society that should be expunged from the earth.

Interesting that you feel each individual deserves his day in court, but have no trouble with American being 'expunged from the earth.

Because that's what we're talking about here, our society, which has been in a near-constant state of fear for ten years. Threat levels, heightened security, intrusive searches and policies I don't particularly agree with were put into place all as a result of the perceived threat of this man and the danger he represented. I would far rather one man die than hundreds of soldiers continuing to die in the multi-year search for him. I admit I am not above using this man's death as an excuse to get rid of the Patriot Act. Or create better relationships with Middle Eastern countries, now that our shared enemy is dead. And that's how we should play it. President Obama can make legislation now to clear out the cobwebs of the former administration's tainted foreign policy and restrain Homeland Security's over-reaching arm, and I hope he realizes now is the time to do it.

But let's look at this man we killed. You say we just needed to point a finger and that's all the evidence we needed to go after him. Not so.

Bin Laden had declared a jihad against the US in 1993, and then he went further and issued a new fatwa: Americans abroad should be targeted as well, including civilians. We had a chance to take him into custody, according to CNN, in the 1990's, but we didn't because we did not yet have evidence against him of real crimes against us. But Bin Laden finally went on the FBI's most-wanted list in 1999, 2 years before the towers went down. We targeted him after, as a result of that fatwa, over 200 people in American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya were killed in bombings in August of 1998. Bin Laden was implicated in the attack on the US Cole in 2000 as well.

But lest you think it is only the U.S. that is 'pointing a finger' at this man as a convenient scapegoat, you should know we weren't the only ones that targeted him. Bin Laden was banished from the Sudan in 1996, and he had already survived an assassination attempt thought to be orchestrated by either the Egyptian or Saudi regimes (or both). Trying to get rid of him, they asked the Saudis to take him in, but the Saudis didn't want him, either. They had revoked his citizenship already. In 1998, the first official arrest warrant against Bin Laden was issued by Libya, for the murder of two German citizens there.

Bin Laden himself claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in 2004 on Arabic television. He reiterated his involvement in 2006. Muslim moderates turned on Bin Laden as a result of his actions: In 2005, clerics in Spain declared a fatwa against him.

So, where would we hold the trial? Here, in America? Do you really think that he would NOT be found guilty by any jury here? And once he was, the penalty would still be death. And critics would still say America just had it out for him and we'd have conspiracy theories like crazy afterward, again. Would we trust a trial held in Libya? They wanted him, too. Libya is not exactly stable just now.

We could hold a military tribunal, I suppose. But, again, we'd get the same arguments about bloody America just wanting its revenge. If we interrogated him, people would say we totured him for evidence. And if we DID torture him for evidence, that would be both horrific and inhumane and ultimately make us more monstrous than the man himself.

So, of all the possible likely outcomes to this, shooting an international fugitive in a mission where one of his company actually used a tried to use a woman as a human shield? I find I can live with that.

Better Bin Laden dead than more of our troops, or our civilians, or those of our allies.
posted by misha at 7:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [25 favorites]

think long: while your point is a good one, I think that it'd have been best if you also allowed for the fact that innocent Americans have died because of actions by other countries as well. (I may very well have smelled 3,000 of them being cremated back in 2001.)

Lots of countries have committed atrocity; lots of these same other countries have had its citizenry become victims of atrocity. Trying to point fingers and say "no, you did more of it" only reinforces the same trend of "us vs. them" we're all trying to escape.

Perhaps we should pause to honor the memories of the innocent civilian dead, of all nations.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Time wheel these out again...

Power of Nightmares 1
Power of Nightmares 2
Power of Nightmares 3
posted by Damienmce at 7:45 AM on May 2, 2011 [17 favorites]

Then I hope you'll pardon me for not cheering.

oh, but you are cheering; it's just more inwardly directed than for the rest of us. you're cheering that your own wise cynicism puts you above us conventional rabble. were you not cheering, we wouldn't know to pardon you for anything. but hey, looks like there are enough of you guys now to form a meetup!

personally, i'm cheering because it's possible that the loss of such a major public figure in terrorism will go some way to demoralizing his followers and cutting recruitment and funding. i'm cheering because this will go some way to helping a lot of people move a bit further beyond their personal losses. i'm cheering because this likely opens up more leads to find terrorists and gives more courage to those who would aid that effort. i'm cheering because getting bin laden might help get to whatever funding he has been providing to others like him. i'm cheering because perhaps in time this will help us and our leaders put into more reasonable perspective the balance between security and freedom.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 7:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [11 favorites]

Can you imagine the jingoistic paroxysms that Fox News would whip themselves into? The unending spin wars over the smallest details, like OJ's trial but a million times worse as everything is spun against Obama? The painful way the rest of the media would align themselves in their various passive stenographer roles? The chance for Osama to get in front of cameras, perhaps even give martyr's speeches?

Because clearly ephemeral media hype is a more important concern then, you know, following the constitution or anything like that. Do you seriously think any of that shit matters? The TV has an off button, you know.

Anyway, they said they gave him the opportunity to surrender and he refused, it doesn't sound like this was an extra-judicial killing (they would have just bombed the place). But still, it would have been better to capture him alive, I think.

Funny, it makes me wonder how many of the Mideast's problems can be traced to a fatal love of conspiracy theories. Makes it hard to think clearly or act decisively.

Are Americans actually any less conspiratorial minded? How many people thought Saddam was involved in 9/11 or that he had WMDs?

The US administration avoids a show trial which could be a major propaganda op for the likes of Ahmadinejad. OBL goes out in what passes for a blaze of glory, without suffering the humiliation of being discovered living conveniently close to the cinema and the golf club.

First of all, Ahmadinejad and Osama were enemies. AQ was opposed to the Iranian regime. Second of all, wouldn't it have been better to humiliate him with a trial?
posted by delmoi at 7:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you only watch 1 go for part 3
posted by Damienmce at 7:48 AM on May 2, 2011

Order pizza on your normal phone

Aww man, have you ever had Pakistani pizza? I'd rather have the special forces raid my compound with extreme prejudice.

And shit, I was kidding, but just before I posted this I googled Pakistani pizza and came up with PizzaHut's Pakistani website.

Holy fuck, globalization is weird.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Does anyone have a link to the death picture of Osama being from a few years ago? I keep seeing people (respectable media outlets even) posting it, and it just screams "fake" to me.
posted by codacorolla at 7:50 AM on May 2, 2011

based on the evidence.

Who's the source of the evidence? From whom is the information coming from? AKA Is the chain of evidence beyond reproach.

he could have been on ice and wheeled out for this event I suppose

Some reporting had this whole attack thing happen last week and elsewhere there existed "pictures" of "dead osama" a few months ago.

And there was reporting of his death in early 2000 - back when Bush II was saying as I remember "I don't worry about Osama".

if OBL isn't actually dead, the ball is in his court now to show up

And what if there is talky-moving pictures labeled as being "in the now" of someone who claims to be OBL - what then?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:50 AM on May 2, 2011

I want to (eventually, not now) see photos. I don't want to see him dead, necessarily; photos before the headshot (though I wonder if any would have been possible, during a firefight) would suit my need better. I want to see evidence that the past decade has aged him as much as it did us, that his karma took a toll. There is photo and filmic proof for Hitler that this was true
posted by cookie-k at 7:50 AM on May 2, 2011

Every country in the world does have the right to ignore US sovereignty. There, now we're even.
posted by Wood at 7:52 AM on May 2, 2011

I'm going to take a shot at writing Jon Stewart's opening monologue for tonight:

But there was Trump droping f-bombs on Friday.

Why not have the 2 mixed with a splice job?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:52 AM on May 2, 2011

"No telephone & no internet" (and burning trash) is also puzzling to me, but not because I think that "really secure" stuff could be set up. Rather, because it calls attention to you.
I keep telling you, no it doesn't. An awful lot of people don't bother with landlines in Pakistan. I doubt they had cellphones, either, but there wouldn't have been any visible evidence of those from the outside, anyway, and that's what most people would assume they used, if they thought about it. Electronic communication lines are not nearly as ubiquitous in Pakistan as they are in the US, or, I would imagine, most of Europe. Not having an internet connection is not really bizarre.

It's bizarre enough that it was noticed.

How many million dollar compounds in Pakistan don't have internet access?
posted by Flunkie at 7:53 AM on May 2, 2011

Any sufficiently advanced super-villain would have pre-recorded a tape to be released after his death claiming that he was still alive, with a nice blank spot for a copy of the NYT with today's date to be CGI'd in.
posted by unSane at 7:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

An angle that hasn't been mentioned yet is the pause in that activity related to the Raymond Davis arrest. I wonder if the lack of cooperation between the CIA and ISI afforded the US an opportunity to close in on OBL without worrying about a drafty window.

That was the first thing I thought of when I head this news - "I wonder how this is related to the Davis shooting and his extraction from Pakistan". If President Obama's statement was entirely factual they've probably had the location nailed for at least a month or so and that SEAL Team will have been running prep on a compound mockup daily. Shame they couldn't get him alive but otherwise props to the team and Obama for making it a focus.

Watching the video on Youtube after the fact, what I took away from it was that Obama was saying "Look what we can do when we put our minds and muscle to a job - we can do it". This job was a military one but the implication there was that any job could be done if you work together. It read to me (as an outsider) that if the USA could stop with the Red vs. Blue you could emerge victorious from any test. I thought it was an excellent speech and those reading negatively into it clearly had their minds made up going in.

It was an exhortation to excel, whatever your role, whatever your position and do your best to make the United States of America great. He referenced acceptance of minorities and many other things only briefly and I personally believe that assuming the Republicans can grow the fuck up that you might have a really brief, bright shining chance of healing the ridiculous divide in your country.

I'm going to emphasise this next bit in bold because this next bit is real important. Don't favourite it please - I don't give a monkeys about them but if you think you should favourite it - don't. Think about what I've said and go to it.

Today is the day you should talk to that Republican neighbour or family member. You've got a window here where you can sell Obama as a man who achieved what Bush couldn't be bothered to do. A small block of time where you can make bonds that will last after this brief period of national relief and elation. Do your best to heal the rift in the national consciousness and use this news to create some hope. May the best possible result come of this and may you give your best effort to make it so.

Good luck to all of you.
posted by longbaugh at 7:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

personally, i'm cheering because it's possible that the loss of such a major public figure in terrorism will go some way to demoralizing his followers and cutting recruitment and funding.

Cheer all you like, but if the dude was in a mansion in Pakistan, and never left his house, then he was already pretty much a non-factor. The life of a person living in rural Aghanistan is different than that of someone living in the electronic media bubble of western civilization. This is a moral victory for us, and not much more.

I hope you're comfortable with the pile of corpses and money we had to stack up to reach a single man.
posted by codacorolla at 7:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't have a problem pardoning anyone for not cheering, nor for tsk tsking the blood lust and nationalist fervor we will see for the next few days. It's gonna get a little crass.

But I think the same acceptance of the opposite view is warranted no matter what your politics, because it really is human nature all over the world. Revenge is what motivated Bin Laden. Revenge will motivate many more acts of violence in the future. You can tell people not to feel vengeful, or not to respond to perceived humiliation by turning the other cheek, and to a point we can practice restraint and operate within safe cultural constraints with nice names like "the rule of law." But when it comes down to it, modern nations are just big tribes.

Thinking a bit like Foucault, it would probably be better all around if we *could* just post OBL's head on a pike in front of the white house for a month, get it out of our system, and return to the sober, rational, internationalist path we were on before last night.

Oh, right.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

oh, but you are cheering; it's just more inwardly directed than for the rest of us. you're cheering that your own wise cynicism puts you above us conventional rabble.

Honestly that just makes you sound callow and defensive. Believe it or not it's possible to feel passionately about what happened to our lost Americans without craving blood atonement. As someone who is essentially against war and against capital punishment, I can totally respect the relief this news must bring to some people -- but forgive me if I am not cheered one whit by the news.
posted by hermitosis at 7:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Does anyone have a link to the death picture of Osama being from a few years ago? I keep seeing people (respectable media outlets even) posting it, and it just screams "fake" to me.

There are multiple links to it upthread. One link shows it as a composite of two pictures, and another MeFi'er found the image posted somewhere on the internet three years ago.
posted by chemoboy at 7:56 AM on May 2, 2011

As I examine my own gut reaction, I detect no "cheer," only grim satisfaction.

But again, it happened to my city. I didn't even realize how much anger I still carried in me from that day.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:57 AM on May 2, 2011

All this narrativization about why it makes sense for Osama to live amid hospitals is interesting and all, but the fact that it's the google maps result for "Abbottabad" makes it seem like a lazy rumor.

Well, given that the the location of the compound is supposed to be 1000 feet from the military academy in Abbottabad, my guess in on this location on Awami Road, which is just down the road from the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), appears to be surrounded by a fence, and appears to generally match some of the features shown in news report.

It's a guess, but not a completely wild one.

If you zoom out a bit you'll see the PMA (corner of Awami and Kakul Roads) so you can pick your location within 1000 of there if you don't like mine.
posted by flug at 7:57 AM on May 2, 2011

But still, it would have been better to capture him alive, I think.

I'm of two minds on that thought. I get the fair trial thing, but then again, there's the can of worms thing. Principle vs practicality sort of thing.

Had you other thoughts on it?
posted by IndigoJones at 7:57 AM on May 2, 2011

Bin Laden himself claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in 2004 on Arabic television. He reiterated his involvement in 2006

And there are people who have looked at that evidence and claim that those were not Bin Laden and cite clips from a short time after 9/11 where OBL denied taking credit for the 9/11 attacks.
posted by rough ashlar at 7:58 AM on May 2, 2011

This is a moral victory for us, and not much more.

At this point, the U.S. needed any kind of victory we could get. So much was going wrong with the country that one thing finally going right feels very good.
posted by chemoboy at 7:59 AM on May 2, 2011

There are people who have looked at all sorts of "evidence" and still say Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim too.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

At this point, the U.S. needed any kind of victory we could get. So much was going wrong with the country that one thing finally going right feels very good.

Yeah, that's true. That's why I'm going to pretend to be patriotic and excited in person and on Facebook. Inwardly, I'm just not feeling it.
posted by codacorolla at 8:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

What makes this thread awesome is that a word search does not turn up the word "sheeple" at all.

It's strange to be posting in the 9/11/ thread and the "Osama is dead" thread ten years later.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:01 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Second of all, wouldn't it have been better to humiliate him with a trial?

Better in what way? As I see it, a trial would have served to give the aggrieved radical and the aggrieved sympathizer of the radical (the latter, I think, has come to be far more dangerous than the former, in terms of total impact) a huge pile of evidence to twist and distort as further proof of how wronged Osama bin Laden was.

The benefit of bringing him to trial would simply be, for our own sakes, to reaffirm OUR belief in the principle that the rule of law was foremost. And, since he refused to surrender to law enforcement officials, shooting him was within the rule of law, anyway.

Order pizza on your normal phone

Aww man, have you ever had Pakistani pizza? I'd rather have the special forces raid my compound with extreme prejudice.

And shit, I was kidding, but just before I posted this I googled Pakistani pizza and came up with PizzaHut's Pakistani website.

Holy fuck, globalization is weird.

I've had a LOT of Pakistani pizza, and can tell you that Pizza Hut in Pakistan sucks, but you should try Gino's on the Gulberg Main Boulevard or Pizza Point just off the Gulberg Main Boulevard. There is quite good pizza to be had in Lahore, and I'm sure, in Islamabad. Abbotabad, of course, not so much. There you order kababs from Kala Khan.

How many million dollar compounds in Pakistan don't have internet access?

Well, I'm going to guess that some of the ones owned by illiterate millionaires actually don't have internet access. Certainly the havelis where some of them house their wives wouldn't. It's not that it's the norm to not have access. Just that there could be any number of explanations for not having it, and while I would expect intelligent intelligence workers to take note and seek explanations, average joe on the street would not notice.
posted by bardophile at 8:01 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Believe it or not it's possible to feel passionately about what happened to our lost Americans without craving blood atonement.

likewise, it's possible to feel some measure of hope and relief merely because they guy no longer exists, and having nothing to do with how or why he no longer exists.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 8:01 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So why the Navy SEALs instead of say, the Rangers or something? I know very little about how US special forces operate and am curious why a group whose specialty is water action was picked for a helicopter mission.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:01 AM on May 2, 2011

but then again, there's the can of worms thing.

Is this the same can of worms where if you shine a light on the top the worms at the top try to get away and dive back down, thus exposing new worms who also try diving back down, exposing new worms in a writhing cycle?

Why not worry instead about canned Mosque-ettos?
posted by rough ashlar at 8:03 AM on May 2, 2011

So why the Navy SEALs instead of say, the Rangers or something? I know very little about how US special forces operate and am curious why a group whose specialty is water action was picked for a helicopter mission.

SEALS stands for SEa, Air, and Land.
posted by almostmanda at 8:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Who's the source of the evidence? From whom is the information coming from? AKA Is the chain of evidence beyond reproach.

Not just this evidence, but the entire history of the US security state, 1941 to now.

Shading and trimming the truth is just SOP. In 1941 the War Department investigating the feasibility of shutttling B-17s from Luzon to the RFE, Eisenhower's letter to his brother about our intervention in Iran vs. the public face of the policy, the Pentagon Papers revealing the divergence between policy and pronouncement -- I could go on.

I don't know what the orders were on this mission, and I don't know how safe it would have been to take OBL into custody at the critical moment when he was plugged in the story.

Nor do I particularly care, but like I said, pronouncements that the official story is the bare fact of the matter is generally a very unwise assertion to make.

cf the Jessica Lynch thing.
posted by mokuba at 8:04 AM on May 2, 2011

Because clearly ephemeral media hype is a more important concern then, you know, following the constitution or anything like that. Do you seriously think any of that shit matters?

It matters inasmuch as it leads to bad publicity and image for the US. Pragmatically I think it would be worse overall than the hit for him not being captured alive. The "needless killing" and "wipe ass with the Constitution" trains left the station long ago, and OBL is not exactly the poster child for making those issues resonate. But go ahead and stay up on that soapbox, dude; I won't pull ya down.
posted by fleacircus at 8:05 AM on May 2, 2011

.
posted by lester at 8:07 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Today is the day you should talk to that Republican neighbour or family member. You've got a window here where you can sell Obama as a man who achieved what Bush couldn't be bothered to do.

Oh God, spare me this bullshit. I'm a political conservative and am thrilled that President Obama and our brave men and women in the military and intelligence communities have succeeded in wiping Obama from the face of the earth. But the notion that Bush "couldn't be bothered" to go after Bin Laden is just another cheap drive-by. In July 2008, President Bush gave explicit authorization for US special forces to conduct operations inside Pakistan, without prior authorization from the Pakistani government.

How about this instead: go talk to a Republican and tell him or her that despite all your differences, today is a day when you can share pride in being an American. Leave it at that, and save your Obama proselytizing for another day.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Shading and trimming the truth is just SOP.

*ding* (and no need to go on)

So - what happens next? As I'm remembering things, part of the shoot-em-up was to 'smoke out the bad guy'.

The 'bad guy' for the passion play is now labeled as smoked out. What's the reason for staying?
posted by rough ashlar at 8:08 AM on May 2, 2011

well bust my bunker!
posted by hellbient at 8:08 AM on May 2, 2011

Rangers operate in major direct action operations - around 150 men with a lot of support. Navy SEALS operate in smaller teams and are several levels of badassery above Rangers. They will have dry run this operations dozens of times on a mock up building until they could do it with minimum casualties and risk. Murphy showed his face with the loss of a helicopter but otherwise an exceptional operation by the sounds of things.

SEAL covers SEa Air and Land so they do more than just naval actions. There have been SEAL teams in rotation in Afghanistan since '03.
posted by longbaugh at 8:09 AM on May 2, 2011

SEALS stands for SEa, Air, and Land.

Okay, but why SEALs over Rangers or Green Berets or Marine Recon?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:10 AM on May 2, 2011

...succeeded in wiping ~~Obama~~ Osama...

Sorry. Typing too fast.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:11 AM on May 2, 2011

It matters inasmuch as it leads to bad publicity and image for the US. Pragmatically I think it would be worse overall than the hit for him not being captured alive.

First of all, the U.S. "Image" around the world is shit. We had a chance to fix things after Obama was elected but that's long gone. Second of all in what planet does having the U.S. government assassinate people make us look better then arresting them and bringing them to trial? The idea is absurd. It isn't like they wouldn't get a conviction.
posted by delmoi at 8:11 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

But the notion that Bush "couldn't be bothered" to go after Bin Laden is just another cheap drive-by.

Yeah, it's not like he came right out and said, "I'm not that concerned about him" or anything.
posted by Aquaman at 8:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [19 favorites]

What's the reason for staying?

Oil, and to pump up the shareholder value of Halliburton and KBR stock for Cheney's pals. Same as it ever was.
posted by jeanmari at 8:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

our brave men and women in the military and intelligence communities have succeeded in wiping Obama from the face of the earth

O RLY?
posted by longbaugh at 8:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, but why SEALs over Rangers or Green Berets or Marine Recon?

It usually involves straws, do you really want to know?
posted by clavdivs at 8:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope you're comfortable with the pile of corpses and money we had to stack up to reach a single man.

I hope you don't think the pile of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan had anything to do with trying to kill or capture bin laden.
posted by empath at 8:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sheez! I was always of the opinion that Bin Laden was in a deep freezer somewhere waiting to be thawed out at the most opportune moment. I guess that was yesterday.
posted by jake1 at 8:14 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope you're comfortable with the pile of corpses and money we had to stack up to reach a single man.

that pile of corpses would today be stacked up whether or not bin laden had been eliminated yesterday.

i've had little agreement with the stuff that's been done to get bin laden, and particularly with the stuff that has used that goal as a pretext. but why should that have anything to do with whether i'm happy he's gone?
posted by fallacy of the beard at 8:14 AM on May 2, 2011

First of all, the U.S. "Image" around the world is shit.

Wrong
posted by empath at 8:14 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Rangers or Green Berets or Marine Recon?

Rangers "Lead the Way". Their job is to do to specialized tasks in a larger military context, like taking out the guns at Pont Du hoc or whatever it was during the Normandy landings.

Green Berets are/were a counter-insurgency force designed for long-term on-the-ground support of indigenous forces. They go native.

Recon is Recon.

There's also the Delta Force, or was, but dunno if they're still around.
posted by mokuba at 8:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Okay, but why SEALs over Rangers or Green Berets or Marine Recon?

Only the SEALS and Delta Force are the type of elite operatives that carry out this mission. Green Berets are a larger group and Rangers larger still. Less elite, as is Marine Recon.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:15 AM on May 2, 2011

"I took this moment to tell my six year old about Sept. 11. Didn't want to discuss it before.

I tried to sum it up for him by saying "we got the bad guy". He asked "are there still any more members of his gang?" I had to say "yes, a lot".
posted by twoleftfeet at 9:08 PM on May 1

This nearly brought me to tears.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 8:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

One of the biggest spiritual epiphanies of my life came seven or eight years ago when I realized I had to learn to love Osama bin Laden. I can't bring myself to feel any kind of joy about this. I think the world's probably better off with him dead, but it's still no reason to celebrate. This was like having to put down a rabid dog.

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
posted by EarBucket at 8:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Delta Force got Saddam so I guess they're on a round robin get-the-evil-dude rotation.
posted by PenDevil at 8:17 AM on May 2, 2011

OK, a little cheer.

Dick Cheney congratulates President Obama.

That's some tasty crow.
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Hits are not tasked to Delta.
posted by clavdivs at 8:18 AM on May 2, 2011

Okay, but why SEALs over Rangers or Green Berets or Marine Recon?

Not just any Navy SEALs, which are designed to operate in small groups, but Team Six, which recruits the best troops from all the Navy SEALS.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:19 AM on May 2, 2011

The "Mark Twain" quote about reading obituaries with pleasure is all over your FaceBook and Twitter feed is probably not by Mark Twain, say the folks at the Mark Twain House & Museum.
posted by Miko at 8:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Could someone tell me if hits are tasked to Delta?
posted by Saxon Kane at 8:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Second of all in what planet does having the U.S. government assassinate people make us look better then arresting them and bringing them to trial?

This is pretty child-like. We tried to get him, but shot him in the process. Oh well.

Obama not just plastering the place with JDAMs and whatnot was our nod to civility.

Who exactly is offended by this action, and why do they matter?
posted by mokuba at 8:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So am I missing something here?

Am I right in saying that we haven't gotten even a single piece of hard evidence that he's dead, and we're now being told that we never will?

We're being told Bin Laden was shot while trying to shoot at American troops - but there's no video or photographic evidence of that (why?) We're being told that they made a DNA analysis which told them very quickly that this was the right man - but it doesn't appear as if any third party will get to make an independent analysis.

So in order to believe this is true, I simply have to believe the uncorroborated word of the US government - is this accurate, or did I miss some hard evidence here?

I'm 48 years old. Objectively, the US government has systematically lied to me all my life - from the bombing of Laos and Cambodia to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and beyond.

So, I'm quite serious when I ask - why should I believe this without any evidence, considering the sole source is one that's proven to be deeply inaccurate over decades?

Please - do me the favour of not using words like "conspiracy theory" and the like - it is an honest question from a skeptical and well-informed person - why should I believe the uncorroborated word of the US government on a subject of such great magnitude, particularly when they have gone out of their way not to provide even one speck of hard evidence?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [30 favorites]

I think I've spotted the new conservative meme about this:

"OBL was captured thanks to intelligence we tortured out of a detainee four years ago. (Of course, this is completely unattributed.) Leave it to Obama to make this all about himself!"

Admittedly, this is a rough draft. Expect it to morph and refine and fill itself with contradictions over the next few days.
posted by fungible at 8:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This was like having to put down a rabid dog.

Declining to take pleasure in the loss of any human life, on general principles, is no good reason to turn the guy into Old Yeller.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

On the one hand: I'll certainly shed no tears for this guy, but I think celebrating someone's death—even someone as vile as bin Laden—is a little crass. Just acknowledge it, and move on. Spare me the jingoistic posturing—it is, as ever, in poor taste.

On the other hand: if I were the guy who fired the fatal shot, you know I'd keep that shell casing and have it made into some kind of bling. I would then proceed to tell everyone, at every bar I ever went to, that I was the guy who killed bin Laden, and hey check this out, this is the shell casing of the bullet that killed him. Just imagine the sheer quantity of free alcohol and sexual propositions I would receive. I KILLED BIN LADEN MOTHERFUCKERS, I AM KING OF THE BADASSES
posted by ixohoxi at 8:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Don't you think that if he wasn't dead he might just pop up, I dunno... very, very soon and shoot another home video?
posted by ob at 8:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

US Special Operations units work like this -

Rangers - Big direct action missions. Stuff that needs a lot of guys, basically.
Special Forces - Training guerilla teams and strategic recon.
SEAL and Delta/CAG - Smaller direct action missions - small units with specific targets.
CIA SAD/SOG - The cream of the SEALS/CAG etc. They do direct action missions but for the CIA rather than via DoD.
Marine (SOC) - Like Rangers, but much scarier and on boats.
Task Force - any combo of the above with other assets, be they foreign or intel.

This is a really short and quick expanation* and I'd recommend reading Wiki really quickly about any of the above for more information.

Delta getting Saddam was part of a Task Force including SAS and a bunch of others folks. You're selling the rest of the folks involved short there.

*this thread is huge.
posted by longbaugh at 8:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

> I hope you don't think the pile of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan had anything to do with trying to kill or capture bin laden.

Did I wake up in some alternate universe today?

The Afghanistan War was originally presented to us as exactly that - an attempt to kill or capture Bin Laden. We were presented with progress reports, thrilled at Osama's near escape in Tora Bora, and that sort of thing.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Original plan was to bomb the compound with stealth bombers, Obama rejected it.
posted by empath at 8:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope you don't think the pile of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan had anything to do with trying to kill or capture bin laden.

Obviously it doesn't, but Bin Laden (and revenge for 9/11) was out pretext for that pile of corpses. Ok, we got him, now what? I don't think the answer is much different from what the answer has been since we invaded Iraq: "Just keep throwing money and blood overseas." That's why I don't see this as a real victory, beyond the symbolism that America was able to do something it set out to do for once. We stacked the bodies up like firewood, finally did what we set out to do, and now we're still stuck over there.

Maybe not though. I've been thinking about it, and maybe this is Obama's chance to say, with wide public support, that we're done fighting wars we can't afford. We can take those trillions of dollars off the deficit, and start paying down the debts that my grandchildren will owe, and maybe even invest a little bit into the future instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollar per drone mission. Maybe this is the point where America comes to its senses, sloughs off its blood flecked rage, and decides that enough is enough.

Maybe, but I doubt it.
posted by codacorolla at 8:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

SHOW ME THE BODY
posted by dbiedny at 8:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"why should I believe this without any evidence"

You shouldn't, but face it, it would be foolhardy of the US to pretend that they had killed him only to have a video appear of him in the next few days gloating. I'd say they made damn sure it was him and he was dead before announcing it!
posted by twistedonion at 8:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

First of all, the U.S. "Image" around the world is shit.

Wrong

Your link shows a 47% approval rating. Anyway, not anything that would somehow be 'damaged' by actually having a trial for bin Laden. And "The increases the U.S. saw in 2009 did not necessarily carry over into 2010, and approval suffered double-digit declines in 14 countries, including Egypt, Japan, and the United Kingdom."

This is pretty child-like. We tried to get him, but shot him in the process. Oh well.

No shit! Maybe that's why I wrote "Anyway, they said they gave him the opportunity to surrender and he refused, it doesn't sound like this was an extra-judicial killing (they would have just bombed the place). But still, it would have been better to capture him alive, I think. " in my first response. I realize that the thread is long, there are a lot of comments, but you don't have to be an idiot. I was replying to someone who said it would be better for him to be killed then captured.
posted by delmoi at 8:27 AM on May 2, 2011

So in order to believe this is true, I simply have to believe the uncorroborated word of the US government - is this accurate, or did I miss some hard evidence here?

Quite possibly correct.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:27 AM on May 2, 2011

...They will task a hit or retrival of a covert nature, but the profile does fit the mission permamaters...dam the filter is slow, lots of double posts.
posted by clavdivs at 8:27 AM on May 2, 2011

> Don't you think that if he wasn't dead

Oh, I have little doubt he's dead. I assumed he was dead around 2006 when we stopped getting videos from him.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The BBC has a different location for the compound
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:28 AM on May 2, 2011

It's taken me nearly 12 hours to really form an opinion on this.

When this was announced, I was feeling strangely...apathetic. Which didn't make any sense, and I was trying to figure out why. The thing is, there's a weird apathy I've picked up from other people I talked to last night.

The thing is, I finally realized - for a lot of people, Osama was just a symbol by this point. A lot of people I talked to had been assuming he was already dead, so the news of his death was just a sort of, "Oh. ...Huh. Okay."

For me, I never really held any vengeful thoughts against bin Laden anyway. In the weeks after the attack, I had a few conversations with friends about "what would you do if bin Laden walked into this room right now," and the worst thing I've ever wanted to do to him was no more than smack him upside the head, like Cher did to Nic Cage in Moonstruck, and holler, "what the hell were you thinking??" But -- I never wanted to kill him. I wanted to put him on trial, and hold him accountable, but I never wanted to kill him.

And as time went on, I realized he did what he did because he was just really, irretrievably warped. If we did put the man on trial, he would absolutely have grounds to use a "not guilty by reason of mental defect" defense. What he did was horrific, but I couldn't really muster any blame or hatred of the man - only pity.

However, he was a catalyst for a big, big change in the American character. And -- sadly -- I fear that change was for the worse. Obama spoke last night of how in the days following 9/11, we "came together as Americans" - but when he said that, I talked back to the TV, saying, "But then that all went to shit almost immediately." We could have retained a lot more of that unity, we could have banded together in a more genuine way -- but instead, we were lead to a place where we became more paranoid, more xenophobic, and more insular, and in the midst of that fear we started turning on each other.

Osama bin Laden brought us to a crossroads and was a catalyst for change. However, the real problems facing this nation came to pass because we changed for the worse, and that is entirely our own fault. My anger is against the people who pointed us down the wrong road -- and they're still around.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [32 favorites]

I almost wonder if Obama wants to get people to doubt this so that when he does release the evidence, people who question the official story will look silly and wrong.

It'd be a good way to inject a false story, but I think if I'm right, he's largely doing it just to quell as much conspiracy talk as possible.

If no evidence is ever released, I won't doubt Bin Laden is dead unless we start getting evidence he is alive. Obama wouldn't claim an elite team of Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden without being sure, which we are thanks to DNA evidence. It'd be a massive embarrassment to the administration and the country as a whole if they were wrong. Something I'm sure Bin Laden would capitalize on by releasing a new tape.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The circumstances and the reaction to this death remind me of nothing so much as the final scenes of Ralph Bakshi's 1977 animation Wizards.

After overcoming many lethal dangers and challenges, the peaceful, nature-loving, elf-communing wizard Avatar reaches his evil brother Blackwolf's castle. His goal is to stop Blackwolf from unleashing the Nazi war machine on an unsuspecting, post-technological world.

Peaceful, nature-loving wizard Avatar takes out a gun and shoots Blackwolf in the face. "Take that, you son of a bitch," he says with a sneer.
posted by Nomyte at 8:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

We're being told Bin Laden was shot while trying to shoot at American troops - but there's no video or photographic evidence of that (why?) We're being told that they made a DNA analysis which told them very quickly that this was the right man - but it doesn't appear as if any third party will get to make an independent analysis.

So in order to believe this is true, I simply have to believe the uncorroborated word of the US government - is this accurate, or did I miss some hard evidence here?

I'm 48 years old. Objectively, the US government has systematically lied to me all my life - from the bombing of Laos and Cambodia to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and beyond.

So, I'm quite serious when I ask - why should I believe this without any evidence, considering the sole source is one that's proven to be deeply inaccurate over decades?

Please - do me the favour of not using words like "conspiracy theory" and the like - it is an honest question from a skeptical and well-informed person - why should I believe the uncorroborated word of the US government on a subject of such great magnitude, particularly when they have gone out of their way not to provide even one speck of hard evidence?

You do realize, that your evidence that there were no WMD and that we bombed Cambodia also comes from the US government?
posted by Ironmouth at 8:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Please - do me the favour of not using words like "conspiracy theory" and the like - it is an honest question from a skeptical and well-informed person - why should I believe the uncorroborated word of the US government on a subject of such great magnitude, particularly when they have gone out of their way not to provide even one speck of hard evidence?

What hard evidence would convince you? Even if hard evidence were presented, could not that evidence have been concocted in a CIA situation room to appear authentic? If you think he was already dead 5 years ago, and if anything the government said should be doubted before it is believed, is your question not disingenuous?
posted by blucevalo at 8:31 AM on May 2, 2011

Your link shows a 47% approval rating. Anyway, not anything that would somehow be 'damaged' by actually having a trial for bin Laden. And "The increases the U.S. saw in 2009 did not necessarily carry over into 2010, and approval suffered double-digit declines in 14 countries, including Egypt, Japan, and the United Kingdom."

You skipped over the fact that the US has a better image than any other major power.
posted by empath at 8:31 AM on May 2, 2011

it would be foolhardy of the US to pretend that they had killed him only to have a video appear of him in the next few days gloating

I don't think anyone's suggesting that he's alive.
posted by thescientificmethhead at 8:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So in order to believe this is true, I simply have to believe the uncorroborated word of the US government - is this accurate, or did I miss some hard evidence here?

skepticism is a good thing, of course. i would say that at this point such a conspiracy would need to involve the military to a degree that they could guarantee nobody would expose the fraud. and also, you don't know yet that there doesn't exist one speck of evidence. i would think there would be some degree of non-US independent verification involved; the administration has had a period of time preparing for this action to anticipate the possibility of such accusations.

but then there is also the video you're not going to see bin laden make this week showing the world and his followers that he is indeed alive and well.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 8:31 AM on May 2, 2011

According to this site, the compound is located here in Google Maps.
posted by yeti at 8:32 AM on May 2, 2011

Glenn Greenwald:

I'd have strongly preferred that Osama bin Laden be captured rather than killed so that he could be tried for his crimes and punished in accordance with due process (and to obtain presumably ample intelligence). But if he in fact used force to resist capture, then the U.S. military was entitled to use force against him, the way the American police routinely does against suspects who use violence to resist capture.

posted by Ironmouth at 8:32 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

...thanks to intelligence we tortured out of a detainee four years ago.

Rumsfeld (?!?!) was on the Today show saying something very much like this. He did use the may/might weasel formulation, but the idea was: Thank God for torture!
posted by Mister_A at 8:32 AM on May 2, 2011

Okay, but why SEALs over Rangers or Green Berets or Marine Recon?

The way this has been explained to me is that they have different missions:

SEAL teams do quick, high-intensity missions that don't require them to stay on the ground long. They carry enough firepower to get in, get out, and handle immediate contingencies, but they'll be in trouble if they get pinned down because they are traveling light. Also, they're more temperamentally-suited to maintaining a very high level of intensity at a steady state, which no human can do for very long.

Delta teams do missions that require long periods in the field. Guys recruited for Delta tend to be very good at adjusting their intensity level to match the situation. They're recruited based on a combination of skills you might not expect (education, especially stuff like languages and medicine, being important). They need to be able and suited to function independently from the command structure for extended periods of time without going cowboy. They fill roughly the same niche in US forces that the Special Air Service does in British forces. Most of the guys going into Afghanistan in the early days were either Delta or ex-Delta (working for CIA).

Green Berets do missions that are typically long duration, and often require heavy interaction with locals. They're very often training missions (meant un-ironically). The Green Beret unit model is larger -- I forget how large, I want to say 12 men? -- than a SEAL team, an SAS '3-man team' or a Delta squad.

Rangers are conventional forces with conventional supply chains who are trained to be as self-sufficient as it's reasonable to expect an Army unit to be. They have more people with medical training, carry more ammo and have more SAWs per capita. My understanding is that you can usefully deploy a Ranger unit as small as a platoon, but you would really want at least a company.

Marine Recon are similar to Rangers, except that they are intended to be capable of more independent function -- they integrate more of their own support capability. You want to use Marine Recon in a situation where you need the unit to be capable of functioning like a full-blown military unit but with poor supply chains.
posted by lodurr at 8:33 AM on May 2, 2011 [38 favorites]

You do realize, that your evidence that there were no WMD and that we bombed Cambodia also comes from the US government?

I believe the United Nations had reporting of no WMD and other sources of the time reported on explosions from bombs in Cambodia.

But do go on.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:33 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

lupus_yonderboy Becuase it would be insanely stupid for the USA to claim he was dead and leave him alive?

Can you imagine what the Republicans would do to Obama if bin Laden turned out not to be dead? He could kiss his political career goodbye and resign himself to being mocked in history books for the next 200 years.

So I'm pretty sure he's dead. To assume otherwise is to assume that Obama is either insane or stupid, and I don't think he's either.
posted by sotonohito at 8:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Please - do me the favour of not using words like "conspiracy theory" and the like

If you think they're lying, then you are proposing a conspiracy theory, there's really no way of getting around that.

I really doubt that Navy Seals are going to be a part of lying about this. I'd have been more skeptical if it had been a predator drone.
posted by empath at 8:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is one of those days where I'm deeply conflicted and it's pulling open a compartmentalized piece of my life. How do you resolve that your child lost 2 years of a parent to military operations that were triggered or enabled by 9/11? I just keep thinking back to the question my then-husband posed- when he volunteered to go so that another soldier who was having his third kid could stay home. I just keep thinking about that family.

I hope that for people who lost loved ones, this brings some level of closure. I know the person I sent to middle east was not the same person who came back. War is not pretty, and I can't blame them for just killing him and not bringing him back for a media circus trial. I also can't begrudge people celebrating, though I don't understand it at all.

So, I'll go back to reading the serious comments, and giggling at the ridiculous ones, because my sense of humor is all I've got that's kept me sane.
posted by Zophi at 8:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

lupus_yonderboy: What exactly would you like as hard evidence?

Any photo or video could be faked.
Physical evidence can be manufactured.
Common storylines and corroboration can be prearranged.
You never met bin Laden, so you couldn't personally identify the body.
You don't have a copy of bin Laden DNA to run analysis.

There is likely no 'proof' anyone could present you that would convince you.

What proof do we have have, other than the government's word, that we landed on the moon? My point being, not to get too philosophical, what hard evidence do you have of anything that goes on outside, your direct and personal view?
posted by Argyle at 8:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

What do you want to see in order to confirm that bin Ladin is dead? His lifeless body? That would be a bad idea.
posted by jabberjaw at 8:35 AM on May 2, 2011

The Secret Team That Killed bin Laden

A war-nerdy, informative, at times speculative piece from National Journal about "the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru."

DevGru belongs to the Joint Special Operations Command, an extraordinary and unusual collection of classified standing task forces and special-missions units. They report to the president and operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directives. Though the general public knows about the special SEALs and their brothers in Delta Force, most JSOC missions never leak. We only hear about JSOC when something goes bad (a British aid worker is accidentally killed) or when something really big happens (a merchant marine captain is rescued at sea), and even then, the military remains especially sensitive about their existence. Several dozen JSOC operatives have died in Pakistan over the past several years. Their names are released by the Defense Department in the usual manner, but with a cover story -- generally, they were killed in training accidents in eastern Afghanistan. That’s the code.

How did the helos elude the Pakistani air defense network? Did they spoof transponder codes? Were they painted and tricked out with Pakistan Air Force equipment? If so -- and we may never know -- two other JSOC units, the Technical Application Programs Office and the Aviation Technology Evaluation Group, were responsible. These truly are the silent squirrels -- never getting public credit and not caring one whit. Since 9/11, the JSOC units and their task forces have become the U.S. government’s most effective and lethal weapon against terrorists and their networks, drawing plenty of unwanted, and occasionally unflattering, attention to themselves in the process.

JSOC costs the country more than $1 billion annually. The command has its critics, but it has escaped significant congressional scrutiny and has operated largely with impunity since 9/11. Some of its interrogators and operators were involved in torture and rendition, and the line between its intelligence-gathering activities and the CIA's has been blurred.

But Sunday’s operation provides strong evidence that the CIA and JSOC work well together....

Seemed worth a read, but I can't vouch for accuracy or anything.
posted by mediareport at 8:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'm sorry, I didn't present my skepticism properly.

The one thing I AM pretty sure of is that if they are claiming that they killed Bin Laden, then Bin Laden is definitely dead today.

But I've assumed Bin Laden was dead for years. If you recall, we had a spate of videos from him, and then a regular series of them around special occasions like elections. The last one was around 2006. In this, a grey-haired, tired looking Bin Laden starts to speak about generalities, and then the video freezes and a similar-sounding but not identical (to my ears) voice starts to speak about contemporaneous events.

And after that, nothing.

So why would Bin Laden cease to make such videos if he were still alive? They certainly bummed me out each time they came out, as a New Yorker - I strongly imagine that they'd have a complementary effect on the enemies of the United States.

Now, Bin Laden was an old man with serious kidney troubles, and he certainly looked like that in the 2006 video. It seemed - and seems - very logical to me that he'd simply died, and that Al Qaeda had covered it up because it was of course in their best interests.

None of this is really "evidence" - but then the US government isn't giving us any evidence at all, so what is a skeptical person supposed to do?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

You do realize, that your evidence that there were no WMD and that we bombed Cambodia also comes from the US government?

What? The UN is a thing. Also, there are people in Cambodia, and a lot of them still have eyes and mouths.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:36 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh, I have little doubt he's dead. I assumed he was dead around 2006 when we stopped getting videos from him.

Oh, OK. That isn't entirely unreasonable. What proof do you have of that?
posted by ob at 8:36 AM on May 2, 2011

What hard evidence would convince you?

What would be considered beyond reproach for science or a well run honest trial?
posted by rough ashlar at 8:37 AM on May 2, 2011

Also, there are people in Cambodia, and a lot of them still have eyes and mouths.
and alot do not have limbs thanks to chinese mines and the warped mind of Kissenger.
posted by clavdivs at 8:39 AM on May 2, 2011

Oh, I have little doubt he's dead. I assumed he was dead around 2006 when we stopped getting videos from him.

So you trust your own assumption based upon the lack of new video tapes more then the word of the US Government? What?
I imagine more evidence will be released. Early times here.
posted by cyphill at 8:40 AM on May 2, 2011

To those touting the awful moral example of the US bringing down a wanted fugitive through force, where's you're outrage over how Bonnie and Clyde or Jesse James met their fates? We've done far worse to take out penny ante criminals than this.

As examples of human brutality go, this action was a relatively responsible and measured use of force for a legitimate end. And it will no doubt help make a much stronger case that America has succeeded in defeating the forces that have provided the justifications for our continued presence in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world in this conflict with radical Islamist terrorist groups.

It should now be a hell of a lot easier to sell the idea to the American people (and more importantly, to our clownishly inept legislators) that President Obama knows what he's doing when it comes to the timetable he's set for withdrawal from Afghanistan.

If that makes it easier to actually affect the withdrawal, then Bin Laden's defeat will have been a major victory for peace.

If Pakistan ends up in the politically awkward position of having to face a popular backlash from its own people for having sheltered a fugitive, mass murdering demagogue, then that just might be a good thing, too.

(And as for the paranoid speculation and innuendo questioning whether or not this actually happened as reported: seriously, get a life.)
posted by saulgoodman at 8:41 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

None of this is really "evidence" - but then the US government isn't giving us any evidence at all, so what is a skeptical person supposed to do?

I don't know. What's a skeptical person supposed to do with any information or misinformation released by the government, given that both of us are about the same age and probably about equally skeptical of the US government and its motives? Either accept it on faith, question it to death, or wear a tinfoil hat about it. Those are pretty much the options.
posted by blucevalo at 8:41 AM on May 2, 2011

None of this is really "evidence" - but then the US government isn't giving us any evidence at all, so what is a skeptical person supposed to do?

Wait a bit more than 17 hours after the fact before declaring you are skeptical because there is no "evidence."
posted by Ironmouth at 8:42 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

> There is likely no 'proof' anyone could present you that would convince you.

Why DO you say that?

I *presented* in my post several pieces of evidence that would convince me. For example, a video of Bin Laden shooting at the US, or being shot by them!

> What proof do we have have, other than the government's word, that we landed on the moon?

On the off-chance you're serious here, the moon missions were tracked by dozens of countries in the world as well as amateur astronomers, and amateur radio hams were able to directly pick up receptions from the astronauts.

If you are still doubtful, the missions left an optically flat mirror on the moon's surface, and it's entirely within the range of an amateur experimenter and a few $00 to bounce a laser off this and pick up the response, all sorts of people have.

Your argument appears to be: "No possible evidence would actually convince people like you, so the government doesn't need to present any evidence at all." Can you see how strange that appears to me?

> What do you want to see in order to confirm that bin Ladin is dead? His lifeless body? That would be a bad idea.

Why? Why are we always told that grown-ups have decided that we get no information at all, because it's bad for us?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:43 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

What's a skeptical person supposed to do with any information or misinformation released by the government

Basics of Bayesian Inference
posted by mokuba at 8:43 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

You do realize, that your evidence that there were no WMD and that we bombed Cambodia also comes from the US government?

What? The UN is a thing. Also, there are people in Cambodia, and a lot of them still have eyes and mouths.

Lupus Yonderboy did not interview those people in Cambodia. And the US government stated that they found no WMD in the Duelfer report.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:44 AM on May 2, 2011

Your link shows a 47% approval rating. Anyway, not anything that would somehow be 'damaged' by actually having a trial for bin Laden. And "The increases the U.S. saw in 2009 did not necessarily carry over into 2010, and approval suffered double-digit declines in 14 countries, including Egypt, Japan, and the United Kingdom."

You skipped over the fact that the US has a better image than any other major power.

That's true. So you honestly think that those numbers would drop if we were able to capture bin Laden alive and put him on trail? Because what I was saying was that that would not happen, that putting bin Laden on trial wouldn't somehow damage the U.S. "image" any worse then it already has been damaged, and not somehow worse then deliberately killing him (which is not what happened).

Do you honestly think that capturing and putting bin Laden on trial would damage the U.S's image internationally? Because, if not what's your point?

Some of the responses I'm getting are pretty bizarre here. Someone said that putting bin Laden on trial instead of killing him would some how be bad for our image, and I said no, that wasn't the case and then people followed up with "who cares what other people think!?" (which actually makes my initial point even stronger) "he fought back, so we had to kill him!" which had actually already said myself, and "well not everyone hates us!" which is kind of irrelevant.
posted by delmoi at 8:44 AM on May 2, 2011

Whoa, this was all in WikiLeaks:

In July 2003, detainee received a letter from UBL’s designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting detainee take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organizing travel, and distributing funds to families in Pakistan. UBL stated detainee would be the official messenger between UBL and others in Pakistan. In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad, PK and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.

posted by geoff. at 8:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [37 favorites]

Basics of Bayesian Inference

Okay, granted, those aren't the only three options. I concede.
posted by blucevalo at 8:46 AM on May 2, 2011

Man, I totally had plans for that bounty once I got my act together.

I guess it's back to scratchies now.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

10/15/01: Bush rejects Taliban offer to surrender OBL
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

So why would Bin Laden cease to make such videos if he were still alive?

He switched to audio-only broadcasts. Maybe he was scared of giving away his location. If anyone in the world had the right to be paranoid...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:49 AM on May 2, 2011

President Obama Watched Live Video Of Bin Laden Raid As It Happened.
posted by gerryblog at 8:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Bin Laden raid years in the making, minutes in execution
posted by homunculus at 8:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

You heard it here first: Obama wins 2012 election...

I called 2012 for Obama back in July '07.

I have notarized documentation.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

L.A. Times:

"During the operation, a photo of his face was transmitted to analysts, who confirmed the identification.

According to Pentagon officials, photos of Bin Laden's dead face do exist but those widely distributed on the Internet are fake. At some point, if only to convince die-hard Bin Laden followers, officials are expected to release a corpse photo, as has been done in the past when famous villains such as Che Guevara and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were killed or captured. Additionally, such special ops are typically videotaped by mini-helmet cams to document a sensitive mission and assist in debriefing and future training."

posted by ericb at 8:52 AM on May 2, 2011

He switched to audio-only broadcasts.

Rich Little.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Yeah regarding the proof that bin Laden is dead, I would imagine there is plenty of video and photos that were taken at the time, but probably won't be publicly released. Maybe some will end up being released, we'll have to see.
posted by delmoi at 8:54 AM on May 2, 2011

Web's bin Laden 'death photo' is fake.
posted by ericb at 8:54 AM on May 2, 2011

BBC reporting that the White House has confirmed that the armed forces are never authorized to kill people who have surrendered. For what it's worth. I don't think anyone was anticipating that bin Laden would surrender.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:55 AM on May 2, 2011

Er, yeah my comment was a bit late :P
posted by delmoi at 8:55 AM on May 2, 2011

10/15/01: Bush rejects Taliban offer to surrender OBL
posted by Sticherbeast 2 minutes ago

Okay, earlier, when I said that I reserved my hatred for the people who lead us down the wrong road after the 9/11 attacks?

This is one of the fuckers I was talking about. I don't want Bush dead, mind -- I want him alive. For a long time. But only after he is confronted with the fact of his own ineptitude and cowardice. Then I want him to live with the full understanding of his own incompetence for a long, long time.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Ah, Ironmouth, as charming as ever!

In fact, in the last few weeks I did talk to Cambodians in Cambodia about those very bombings. Do I get an apology now? No?

But let me break down your argument to its basic:

* No individual piece of evidence is 100% reliable.
* Even our reports of great world events rely on this unreliable evidence, even ones where we have thousands of pieces of evidence gathered by thousands of people like the bombings in Cambodia.
* Therefore you should believe in this new claim, even though there is almost no evidence at all for it.

Again, the reason I believe in, say, the bombing of Cambodia is the weight of evidence - because there's a huge quantity of documentary evidence from many different parties, many of whom are supposedly independent. We have photographs, we have all sorts of eyewitness accounts, we have people who were supposedly crippled in these supposed bombings who are still alive and can be stalked to, and that sort of thing.

In this Bin Laden case, I am being presented with no hard evidence whatsoever - I am simply being given the uncorroborated word of the US government, a source that has been deeply unreliable in the past and has also got extreme vested interests here.

Can you not see how these are completely and utterly different things?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

That close to Lake Tarbela; and never being able to go water skiing, swimming, or fishing.

Enjoy the fiery lake of Hades, dude! bwahhhhh!
posted by buzzman at 8:57 AM on May 2, 2011

As has been stated above: U.S. Team's Mission Was To Kill, Not Capture.
posted by ericb at 8:59 AM on May 2, 2011

President Obama Watched Live Video Of Bin Laden Raid As It Happened

I'd like to think that he stood watching the video screen dispassionately, took a sip of coffee, and said to himself, "that is a kill."
posted by BobbyVan at 8:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Conspiracy theory dudes/dudettes: you're coming across as loons. Give it up, unless you want to become the next generation of truthers/birthers.
posted by unSane at 9:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

President Obama Watched Live Video Of Bin Laden Raid As It Happened.

I'd wait for a better source than someone who has been indicted for fraud.
posted by empath at 9:00 AM on May 2, 2011

Joe Scarborough: Obama’s Base Didn’t Want Him To Catch Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 9:01 AM on May 2, 2011

Ya, this point it seems like people are intent on having a pointless Cartesian debate about "what we can know."

Unless you have evidence against the evidence, I would GYOFB
posted by rosswald at 9:01 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

We missed out on getting Osama earlier when it was published that he was being followed by satellite phone. Wiki leaks talking about the courier being based on Abottabad could have done the same thing to this operation.
posted by garlic at 9:02 AM on May 2, 2011

As has been stated above: U.S. Team's Mission Was To Kill, Not Capture.

There's a lot of shit coming out now from anonymous sources. I think everyone's default position on pretty much anything not officially confirmed should be extreme skepticism.
posted by empath at 9:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know it's wrong to make this comparison, but the fact that one of, if not the biggest, current enemies of America was living in a nice house in an almost suburban-ish area, certainly compared to the cave in the middle of nowhere we were conditioned to expect, makes me think of this.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can you not see how these are completely and utterly different things?

There is Obama supporting to be done, so no.
posted by rough ashlar at 9:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Wait a bit more than 17 hours after the fact before declaring you are skeptical because there is no "evidence."

OK, I'll bite here. Can you name any other comparable news story of this magnitude that has broken and we have NOT received some hard evidence of it from a third-party within 17 hours?

And, don't get me wrong here, I'm not sure that this didn't happen. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if we did later get, say, video evidence that proved that Bin Laden was, in fact, killed yesterday - and none of this would prove anything I said above to be wrong.

I am simply claiming that we have not been given enough evidence, and that the US government is a historically unreliable source - so that a skeptical person ought not to believe this until more evidence, one way or the other, is forthcoming.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ugh, less links to what types like Joe Scarborough think, please, and more links to facts.
posted by mediareport at 9:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

And shit, I was kidding, but just before I posted this I googled Pakistani pizza and came up with PizzaHut's Pakistani website.

I'll have a large Shawarma Pizza on Seekh Kebab Stuffed Crust, please. Hold the jalapeños.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:03 AM on May 2, 2011

Enjoy the fiery lake of Hades, dude! bwahhhhh!

Huckabee To Osama: 'Welcome To Hell'.
posted by ericb at 9:04 AM on May 2, 2011

Why should I accept the government's word that Osama bin Laden ever existed in the first place? They've lied before. I'm just asking questions.
posted by gerryblog at 9:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

OK, I'll bite here. Can you name any other comparable news story of this magnitude that has broken and we have NOT received some hard evidence of it from a third-party within 17 hours?

Which 3rd party(ies) would you believe? Which 3rd party would you judge to have sufficiently few dogs in this fight that they could be declared unequivocally credible?
posted by rtha at 9:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Some of you are upset that Special Forces is not a team of roving wizards

You're goddamn right I am. How cool would THAT be?
posted by Zozo at 9:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [11 favorites]

Joe Scarborough: Obama’s Base Didn’t Want Him To Catch Bin Laden.

I like how he says Obama had to "[go] against his own ideological leanings to do what he believes he has to do." So he had to go against what he believes in, in order to accomplish what he believes in? It requires some really interesting denial gymnastics to accept that line.
posted by penduluum at 9:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The President is speaking live at a Medal of Honor ceremony
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

a skeptical person ought not to believe this until more evidence, one way or the other, is forthcoming.

OK, we need to start a betting pool then. I need some extra walking-around money. Ladbrokes or someone should get on this.
posted by aramaic at 9:06 AM on May 2, 2011

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
posted by unSane at 9:07 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

OK, I'll bite here. Can you name any other comparable news story of this magnitude that has broken and we have NOT received some hard evidence of it from a third-party within 17 hours?

Looking at what information is out there now, part of the reason for the success of t his mission was that the US didn't share information with third parties.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that those that are unhappy about this news are extremists on one end of the spectrum or another. There are some weird reactions here. I can appreciate "let's not celebrate some guy getting killed" but the tinfoil hat stuff is just strange. Look, Obama is not going to lie about killing OBL. It's falsifiable, and there is evidence (DNA, pictures, a new video that could be made, etc) that would come out and absolutely clown him if it's untrue.
posted by norm at 9:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

gerryblog:

> Why should I accept the government's word that Osama bin Laden ever existed in the first place? They've lied before. I'm just asking questions.

Ha ha ha. Why say things that you don't really believe? Do you think this helps the conversation? Do you think that I or anyone here doesn't believe that Bin Laden existed?

There are literally dozens of interviews with Bin Laden that you can find in seconds. There a photographs of him from childhood to after 9/11. etc. etc.

A skeptical adult would conclude that Bin Laden did exist based on the weight of evidence.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:09 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

OK, I'll bite here. Can you name any other comparable news story of this magnitude that has broken and we have NOT received some hard evidence of it from a third-party within 17 hours?

Uh, you do know that there is evidence that a raid took place at the given site yesterday, as twittered by the Pakistani computer guy, right, and that ABC news has been inside the compound and there are blood stains on the floor etc.? Right? You are aware of all of this, no?

Yes, the government is debating releasing the photos. I hope they don't. They will leak.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:10 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think it's natural for some people to consider conspiracy theories in light of surprising things happening. It's part of how we rationalize change.

The problem is when people ignore new evidence or start chaining together spurious evidence to kindle their personal conspiracy, and then it goes viral. For example, the thought of a second sniper in the grassy knoll assassinating JFK doesn't work. If you observe the ballistics (I won't get gory here), it doesn't work. But the official story of some lone nut taking out the president in an age with the Secret Service and everything makes people want to think up something different.

Likewise, I think people are drawn to think finally getting Osama's whereabouts and subsequently killing him is not parsimonious with their previous assumptions. After years of hearing Bush and other Republicans talk a big game about finding terrorists and bringing them to justice, particularly Osama Bin Laden, and them failing to deliver over two terms of executive power made us skeptical Osama could be caught, or even if he was alive in the first place. Add in the fact that Obama is widely seen as less hawkish than Bush (they're kind of similar on foreign policy, actually, but that's not the perception), and we have a president people thought wouldn't prioritize this sort of thing. So, when we finally do get Osama, we wonder if something is up.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

From the BBC:

1648: The BBC's Katty Kay, at the Pentagon, reports: "A White House official tells me there was no decision to automatically go for a kill. US military personnel are not authorised to kill if a subject surrenders, but because of who Bin Laden was it was widely assumed that there would be a kill. The White House also says it was Bin Laden who 'cowardly hid' behind a woman."

1652: There are photos of Osama Bin Laden's death, says the BBC's Katty Kay, at the Pentagon. But, she adds, the White House may fear that the images are too bloody to be seen.

1653: Bin Laden was given a religious funeral before his burial at sea, a US defence official is quoted as saying by Reuters.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:14 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Which 3rd party(ies) would you believe? Which 3rd party would you judge to have sufficiently few dogs in this fight that they could be declared unequivocally credible?

A simple video of Bin Laden fighting and/or being killed would be pretty conclusive - if they brought in reporters from international papers and showed them the body, that would be pretty conclusive too. Or, if they allowed third parties access to the DNA evidence. A range of pictures of the body would convince me pretty fast.

In fact, there's tons of possible evidence that would convince a skeptical person, but didn't I already list it above...?

Oh, wait, it's the same argument again: "You're not convinced by the current lack of evidence, so clearly you must be the sort of nutcase for whom no evidence would be good enough."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:14 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Osama bin Laden killed near Pakistan's West Point. Was he really hidden?
posted by homunculus at 9:14 AM on May 2, 2011

NPR has posted a more thorough account of the raid.
posted by Miko at 9:16 AM on May 2, 2011

[Obama and Osama]
> So, when we finally do get Osama, we wonder if something is up.

I would have been even more skeptical if it had been Bush announcing they got Bin Laden in 2008, frankly.

I am not skeptical because it's Mr. Obama doing the announcing - I'm skeptical because I don't have enough evidence.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The problem is ....

And here I was thinking the problem is a lack of transparency so that the creeping fungi of "conspiracy theories" can gain no purchase. What with sunlight being the best disinfectant and all.
posted by rough ashlar at 9:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

You heard it here first: Obama wins 2012 election...

I called 2012 for Obama back in July '07.

I have notarized documentation.

But is it long form?
posted by jgirl at 9:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am not skeptical because it's Mr. Obama doing the announcing - I'm skeptical because I don't have enough evidence. - Donald Trump
posted by dirtdirt at 9:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wonder if the reason that Biden was not at the White House Correspondent's Dinner was that they knew he'd spill the beans, after a few drinks.
posted by Danf at 9:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

lupus_yonderboy, I understand your skepticism and I don't think there's any really compelling argument against it right now, although I hope you'll understand if many of us don't share it, as I don't think there's really any compelling argument for it at present. Can we agree to disagree until more information becomes available?
posted by shakespeherian at 9:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

So the place it happened is here?
posted by pracowity at 9:20 AM on May 2, 2011

In this Bin Laden case, I am being presented with no hard evidence whatsoever - I am simply being given the uncorroborated word of the US government, a source that has been deeply unreliable in the past and has also got extreme vested interests here.

do you like have somewhere you need to be? maybe obama's just not aware of your timetable.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 9:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am not skeptical because it's Mr. Obama doing the announcing - I'm skeptical because I don't have enough evidence.

Forget the entire rest of the US government. You're talking about an elite group of Navy Seals that carried out the operation -- people who are big on the whole honor code thing. There's 0 chance they're going to knowingly participate in a conspiracy to mislead the American public and the world.
posted by empath at 9:21 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

homonculus' link to that McClatchy story is a good summary with a bit more detail about the complex operations leading up to the raid.

Obama met with a close circle of top national security aides five times since March 14 to review the intelligence assessment and plans for the operation before giving the final go-ahead.
posted by mediareport at 9:22 AM on May 2, 2011

Anything's possible, but the blowback from a fraudulent mission would be absolutely extraordinary. The affirmative assertion that Obama has lied about killing OBL needs some evidence.

Here's a relevant snippet from AFP:

A member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Osama bin Laden's network in Yemen, said he had confirmed the news of the killing, calling it a "catastrophe."
"This news has been a catastrophe for us. At first we did not believe it, but we got in touch with our brothers in Pakistan who have confirmed it," a member reached by telephone told an AFP correspondent in Yemen.

posted by Sticherbeast at 9:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

We're being told Bin Laden was shot while trying to shoot at American troops - but there's no video or photographic evidence of that (why?)

So, you're asking why you weren't given the same video of the classified raid that the President of the United States watched when he ordered a Navy SEAL team to assassinate someone?

Well, I guess Obama has better cable than you.

None of this is really "evidence" - but then the US government isn't giving us any evidence at all, so what is a skeptical person supposed to do?

Not spin yarns about how bin Laden has actually been dead for years. You're not a skeptic. You're axe grinding.
posted by spaltavian at 9:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Wait a minute, let's not all jump on lupus_yonderboy. I don't agree with him, but his points are not unreasonable.
posted by ob at 9:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

dirtdirt wrote:

> I am not skeptical because it's Mr. Obama doing the announcing - I'm skeptical because I don't have enough evidence. - Donald Trump

I think calling you "extremely rude" for appending Donald Trump's name to my quote is pretty accurate.

I will assume that you don't actually have a factual rebuttal to my argument and are reduced to mockery instead of reasoning.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

This crazy celebrating and cock-of-the-walk puffed-up-ness is embarrassing the hell out of me as an American.
posted by pupstocks at 9:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

So, you're asking why you weren't given the same video of the classified raid that the President of the United States watched when he ordered a Navy SEAL team to assassinate someone?

Well, I guess Obama has better cable than you.

Spaltavian for the win.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:25 AM on May 2, 2011

Can we agree to disagree until more information becomes available?

Did you ever consider he's bringing up the point:

the uncorroborated word of the US government, a source that has been deeply unreliable in the past
posted by rough ashlar at 9:25 AM on May 2, 2011

We're being told Bin Laden was shot while trying to shoot at American troops - but there's no video or photographic evidence of that (why?)

Because the American troops had better things to focus on than fiddling with the camcorder?
posted by statolith at 9:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not saying anyone on MetaFilter is being irrational yet. Nobody has much evidence, yet.

But it'd be a major and strange conspiracy for Obama to falsely claim Bin Laden is dead, though. As it could easily backfire on him in so many ways.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:26 AM on May 2, 2011

lupus_yonderboy, I think you're just trolling and I think you should knock it off. But if you're serious, I genuinely don't understand what the alternative explanation for Obama's press conference is supposed to be if it didn't really happen. They woke up everybody for an unprecedented announcement on a Sunday night because they decided to tell an easily debunked lie for no reason on a subject no one was thinking about and no one was expecting any action on? Skepticism doesn't mean you just call everyone a liar until they show you video proof.

No one here agrees with you because your opinions aren't rational.
posted by gerryblog at 9:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [13 favorites]

the blowback from a fraudulent mission would be absolutely extraordinary.

A credibly faked OBL 'neener neener I am alive' could have the same effect.
posted by rough ashlar at 9:28 AM on May 2, 2011

I will assume that you don't actually have a factual rebuttal to my argument and are reduced to mockery instead of reasoning.

We've pointed out that there is plenty of evidence that there was a raid on that house yesterday where persons were obviously wounded, that there are photos from there, that outside observers unwittingly twittered the attack, including the destruction of the helicopter--all despite the fact that it happened 21 hours ago, halfway across the world. There has been tons of "factual rebuttal" to your arguments, which have no facts to support them. They are complete supposition, with not a shred of evidence to support them.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Forget the entire rest of the US government. You're talking about an elite group of Navy Seals that carried out the operation -- people who are big on the whole honor code thing. There's 0 chance they're going to knowingly participate in a conspiracy to mislead the American public and the world.

Also, if they were just going to lie about it being OBL, why would they have actually gone through with the raid in Abbottabad, as was accidentally live-tweeted by that IT fellow? I mean, hell, why couldn't they have just lied about OBL's death earlier, at a more politically opportune time? Why would they have buried this news in a late-night Sunday announcement? Why was there such a long delay between when they said that Obama would hold a press conference and when Obama actually did hold it?
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:29 AM on May 2, 2011

Did you ever consider he's bringing up the point:

the uncorroborated word of the US government, a source that has been deeply unreliable in the past

That's not skepticism, that's cynicism. There's a difference.
posted by gerryblog at 9:30 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

No one here agrees with you because your opinions aren't rational.

Right. The US Government has never EVER lied.

In fact, if its on TV or the Radio it must be true.
posted by rough ashlar at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Osama bin Laden's network in Yemen, said he had confirmed the news of the killing, calling it a "catastrophe."
"This news has been a catastrophe for us. At first we did not believe it, but we got in touch with our brothers in Pakistan who have confirmed it," a member reached by telephone told an AFP correspondent in Yemen.

Is that "independent" enough for you lupus_yonderboy?

Because the American troops had better things to focus on than fiddling with the camcorder?

A lot of them have helmet cams. It's likely that the killing was on video and I'm sure it's been seen by people in the pentagon.
posted by delmoi at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Which 3rd party(ies) would you believe? Which 3rd party would you judge to have sufficiently few dogs in this fight that they could be declared unequivocally credible?

A simple video of Bin Laden fighting and/or being killed would be pretty conclusive - if they brought in reporters from international papers and showed them the body, that would be pretty conclusive too. Or, if they allowed third parties access to the DNA evidence. A range of pictures of the body would convince me pretty fast.

This did just happen only 24 hours ago. Maybe it's still coming.

Besides -- Occam's Razor is cutting through an awful lot of alternative theories for me -- why would we not have announced bin Laden's death earlier if we knew he died earlier? To wait gain would delaying the announcement be?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think a reasonable expectation is that, if the operation contains any sensitive information, that it is declassified after a given amount of time. I think that's the best you can hope for.

Evidence of the death of Osama bin Laden should be shown to members of Congress. If the word of 500 elected representatives can't be trusted, then the US has bigger problems to worry about than Osama bin Laden.
posted by lemuring at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Can we agree to disagree until more information becomes available?

Did you ever consider he's bringing up the point:

the uncorroborated word of the US government, a source that has been deeply unreliable in the past

Yes, we are all considering the fact that the US sometimes does not tell the truth. Like every government on the face of the Earth. But again, not all info is coming from the US government.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

he uncorroborated word of the US government, a source that has been deeply unreliable in the past

The US government is not a person. It's the word of the President of the United States, the CIA and the Navy Seals. If the President lies about this, you're talking about an impeachable offense. There will absolutely be congressional hearings about this where people will testify under oath about how this played out.

Conspiracies this big and involving this many groups with disparate goals and motivations simply don't happen. If you're going to posit a criminal conspiracy, you need to figure out some way to confine it to a tight-knit group with the ability to keep the planning and execution of the plot secret. It's wildly implausible in this case, if you give it 10 minutes thought.

Being skeptical is fine, but it isn't enough.

If you're going to put forward a conspiracy theory, please answer the following questions:

Who benefits and how?

Who is in on it?

How is it being kept secret?
posted by empath at 9:32 AM on May 2, 2011 [13 favorites]

Had he filled out his organ donation form?
posted by buzzman at 9:34 AM on May 2, 2011

A member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Osama bin Laden's network in Yemen, said he had confirmed the news of the killing, calling it a "catastrophe."
"This news has been a catastrophe for us. At first we did not believe it, but we got in touch with our brothers in Pakistan who have confirmed it," a member reached by telephone told an AFP correspondent in Yemen.

That about wraps this one up.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:34 AM on May 2, 2011

If the word of 500 elected representatives can't be trusted, then the US has bigger problems to worry about than Osama bin Laden.

I believe that has already been established and no one has a good solution to the problem of Congress being in session. *rim shot*
posted by rough ashlar at 9:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Evidence of the death of Osama bin Laden should be shown to members of Congress. If the word of 500 elected representatives can't be trusted, then the US has bigger problems to worry about than Osama bin Laden.

Yeah, a closed security briefing for Congress, at least for the appropriate committees, ought to happen as soon as possible.
posted by EarBucket at 9:36 AM on May 2, 2011

They woke up everybody for an unprecedented announcement on a Sunday night because they decided to tell an easily debunked lie for no reason on a subject no one was thinking about and no one was expecting any action on?

This, basically. At the present time, less than 48 hours or so after the event, it's more plausible to believe that the President believes, truly, that Bin Laden is dead, then it is to believe that he'd risk his office for a stunt. Now it's possible that the President is mistaken, that it wasn't Bin Laden who was killed; it's also possible, though less so, that the President is engaging in fraud. However, lacking any compelling argument for those two latter propositions (or any argument at all), it's much more likely that Bin Laden is, indeed, dead.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow, lots of mockery and rudeness here (and a few polite people). I assume that just shows that a lot of people are very insecure about what they believe!

As I said, I won't be surprised if later evidence appears proving that Bin Laden was really just killed is shown to us, nor will I feel the slightest thing I've said above is wrong.

We have, however, not yet been presented with that evidence, and considering that the US government has historically been a deeply unreliable source about such matters, I believe a rational person should reserve judgement on this issue until hard proof is available.

And as for what I believe, well, I really don't. As I've said consistently above, I've suspected for years that Bin Laden was already dead and after this announcement, I'd say that I'd guess that the odds that Bin Laden is dead at this instant are extremely high. If I had to bet, I'd probably bet that the actual facts are quite similar to what has been presented to us by the US government - but I'm not sure if I'd give you huge odds on that bet because I've claimed the USG was not lying before, and have been wrong, far too many times. But I simply do not know.

My hope is that the US government will release more information that will convince me and I won't have to wonder about this, but if that never happens I will not be able to discuss this event without using words like "alleged" and "supposed".
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

You're talking about an elite group of Navy Seals that carried out the operation -- people who are big on the whole honor code thing. There's 0 chance they're going to knowingly participate in a conspiracy to mislead the American public and the world.

Perhaps someone can ask Jesse Ventura for his position about such?
posted by rough ashlar at 9:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why do the "experts" keep referring to the location as a suburb, or a suburban location outside of Islamabad? This is a city of 1 million people 35 miles to the north of the capital. Think Baltimore, which is a city about 35 miles north of DC.

Oh man, you have no idea how much this resonates with me as a Dutchman. Whenever something happens in the Netherlands and it's not in Amsterdam, it's reported in English-language (well, American) media as having taken place "outside of Amsterdam" or "on the outskirts of Amsterdam".

I know the Netherlands is territorially small, but the Baltimore / DC comparison is apt. I'll keep it in mind.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:41 AM on May 2, 2011

OK, you want a conspiracy theory, I'll give you a conspiracy theory:

The reason that there is external evidence, such as the Twitter guy and the crashed helicopter and the video of bloody contents of the compound and the locals saying that there was an attack, is because there was an attack. The helicopter did crash. The compound was bloodied. The Twitter guy did tweet.

But the people who were in that compound -- the people who were killed -- did not include Osama Bin Laden. Rather, they were the people who provided the CIA with concrete evidence that Bin Laden has been dead and buried in an unmarked grave for years.

Now that those guys are gone -- and Bin Laden's body has been exhumed and really has been dumped in the sea -- there's no one left, outside of the CIA and the upper echelons of the administration, who has evidence to contradict the official story.

"SEAL Team Six" does not actually exist; it's a plausible fiction put forth exactly for situations like this. Any investigation into its supposed existence can plausibly be stymied by national security claims. It was all CIA black ops, all the way.

The Al Qaeda guy in Yemen who confirmed the death to the press, calling it a "catastrophe", is a CIA plant.

(I feel I should probably explicitly note that I don't believe this)
posted by Flunkie at 9:42 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

The BBC gives this as the location of bin Laden's compound. I've checked it on Google Earth, and it shows that the Google Maps image is from 2005, around when the building was being constructed. In 2001, the building didn't exist. The age of the 2005 image explains the relative lack of trees.

Here is another subtle clue as to the age of the image. It features Piffers.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:43 AM on May 2, 2011

The problem with a conspiracy to fake Bin Laden's death is that even if it could be kept secret from the American people, lots of people in the intelligence community would know about it, and it would get leaked to republicans who could use it against Obama.

There were some conspiracies that were uncovered by wikileaks, but they were all pretty mundane (like pressuring countries on various policy issues). The bush administration couldn't even keep torture secret. How could they possibly keep something like this secret when it's such a political bonus for Obama?
posted by delmoi at 9:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Alas, rough ashlar, Jesse Ventura was almost definitely not a SEAL.
posted by norm at 9:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Osama bin Laden brought us to a crossroads and was a catalyst for change. However, the real problems facing this nation came to pass because we changed for the worse, and that is entirely our own fault. My anger is against the people who pointed us down the wrong road -- and they're still around.
posted by EmpressCallipygos

Or as I heard it put maybe a year after 9/11 ...

America had two options post-9/11. Revenge or Reconciliation. Two syllables versus five. Reconciliation never stood a chance.
posted by philip-random at 9:44 AM on May 2, 2011

We have, however, not yet been presented with that evidence, and considering that the US government has historically been a deeply unreliable source about such matters...

I am unaware of the US government habitually lying about killing high value targets.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wait a minute, let's not all jump on lupus_yonderboy. I don't agree with him, but his points are not unreasonable.

skepticism is not unreasonable. unreasonable is making premature speculation of the existence of a conspiracy of unprecedented scope, ostensibly because we haven't been given sufficient evidence for it, based on lupus_yonderboy's vague suspicions, which he asks us to consider although he can give us absolutely no evidence for them.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 9:45 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

considering that the US government has historically been a deeply unreliable source about such matters, I believe a rational person should reserve judgement on this issue until hard proof is available.

I want to believe.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:45 AM on May 2, 2011

It's funny to me how the green flower pattern on the blanket in this ABC news image with Bin Laden resembles the pattern on the rug to the bottom left of the "death bed" picture, though the rug seems to have a red border.
posted by cashman at 9:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lupus_Yonderboy, would you mind just knocking off the "healthy skeptic" pose for a bit?

Frankly, nobody cares whether or not you believe the information coming out over the last 24 hours, and you are sucking out all of the oxygen from what has otherwise been a pretty interesting thread so far.

I am not dismissing your concerns, just pointing out that they may be kind of irrelevant at the moment.
posted by Aquaman at 9:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

On Bin Laden's death and the Arabs, from The Arabist, "with regards to Osama Bin Laden's place in the Arab political imagination":

There's no need to ignore that, for a time, Bin Laden had a superficial role to play as a symbol of resistance to American or Western imperialism. So did Saddam Hussein or Muammar al-Qadhafi or the Assads at various points. But I never thought that feeling ran very deep for the vast overwhelming majority of Arabs, or indeed Muslims. But the sentiment Bin Laden evokes today is probably indifference. Bin Laden simply wasn't an important figure in recent years, and was particularly irrelevant to the Arab uprisings.

Al Qaeda could have been important, perhaps, if it had scored some major military victories against the West, particularly after the Iraq war when anti-Western sentiment ran its highest. Indeed, Bin Laden's greatest achievement may have been to enable the neo-cons to carry out their loony agenda, which has done more than anything to discredit the US in the region. Between Iraq '03, Lebanon '06, Gaza '09, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib there were plenty of occasions in which the US (or its allies) discredited itself.

The radical-theological option that Bin Laden represented as a solution to the state of the Arab world has long been discredited. It was discredited before it even began, in that it was a result of the failure of the violent Islamist movements of the 1970s-1990s era. Also discredited, or at least on the ropes, are the pro-US "reformist" option of the "moderate" Arab regimes. Moderate, in the way Saudi Arabia or Mubarak's Egypt was, and reformist, because they are interested in changing to survive, not making a radical break. But the people spoke and they don't want reform, they want rupture.

The trends that are winning out in recent years are the radical-resistance ideologies of Hizbullah (and to a lesser degree Hamas) and the radical-centrist view that fueled the uprisings. And in the longer-run, it is the latter rather than the former that have a vision of societies that are not constantly mobilized towards an external (or internal) enemy. The views of Hamas and Hizbullah address the problems of war and occupation, but not those of these societies beyond those problems. Bin Laden never really addressed either, his fight was for the glory of the impossible and in the hereafter.
posted by mediareport at 9:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

based on lupus_yonderboy's vague suspicions,

So he just SUSPECTS a history of the US Government being involved in incidents of lying?
posted by rough ashlar at 9:47 AM on May 2, 2011

I think calling you "extremely rude" for appending Donald Trump's name to my quote is pretty accurate.

I will assume that you don't actually have a factual rebuttal to my argument and are reduced to mockery instead of reasoning.

Ok. Without getting into whether or not this was the right way to proceed (eg: killing rather than bringing to trial) I think President Obama was in fairly impossible situation, and this is the best of a bunch of imperfect routes to take. I'll run down them.

1) Don't say anything - but then it leaks and it seems like he is holding on to it to release at the proper time.
2) Release film and photo evidence - instant propoganda for the other side. Yes, dead is dead, but bloody corpse pictures leading the news creates a different impression in the public mind, both sides, than is wanted in a 'surgical' military strike. Especially in the face of "killed vs captured"
3) Hang onto the body - what a shitshow that would be.
4) Let the President, calmly, at the earliest moment, say what happened. The body is already buried at sea (in deference to religion - let his God judge him) but sampling has been conducted that will allow for conclusive evidence that it was in fact Osama Bin Laden. this evidence, along with (probably) pictures will be leaked or released once a rule-of-law narrative has been established (see: our old friend "kill v capture").

At any rate, I really really really doubt this is fabricated, the stakes are so high, and the results are so public, and at some point you are going to have to accept someone telling you that the evidence is genuine, unless you want to inspect the DNA yourself. Your obstinateness in this point reminds me of Trump in the "Come on. Really?" way, and yes, it was maybe rude to say so in a snarky way. I apologize for that.
posted by dirtdirt at 9:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't think lupus_yonderboy is being even vaguely unreasonable.

At this point, the only evidence we have of bin Laden's death is the U.S. Government's claim that he's dead, and blood on the floor at the stated location.

That's it. We don't really KNOW at this point, and can't without more evidence. It's possible the soldiers on site or their bosses simply got it wrong. No deception necessary, they could just be mistaken.

I suspect he probably is dead, and probably was killed just when Obama said he was, but we don't KNOW it. Those of you piling on lupus_yonderboy are distorting his arguments in strange and unfair ways. He is correct that we don't know, and his suspicion that bin Laden may have been dead for several years, given the other evidence, is hardly unreasonable.

So knock it off. What he's saying is precisely correct; that we cannot yet be certain this is the truth. That's the smart bet at this point, but 'likely' and 'certain' are not the same things.
posted by Malor at 9:48 AM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

As I've said consistently above, I've suspected for years that Bin Laden was already dead and after this announcement, I'd say that I'd guess that the odds that Bin Laden is dead at this instant are extremely high. If I had to bet, I'd probably bet that the actual facts are quite similar to what has been presented to us by the US government - but I'm not sure if I'd give you huge odds on that bet because I've claimed the USG was not lying before, and have been wrong, far too many times. But I simply do not know.

Evidence is still coming in, and supposedly the SEALs wore headcams to record the mission. Hopefully this will get released in some responsible fashion or another.

That said, though, if OBL had been dead since 2006, then why would the AQ member interviewed by the AFP suddenly declare THIS moment to be catastrophic and suddenly declare NOW that it has been confirmed that OBL has been kill this weekend? Is the AFP in on this? Was that member of AQ a double agent? Was he a total loon? Was he lying about confirming with sources in Pakistan at all?

Isn't it more likely that your earlier belief that OBL has been dead since 2006 - a belief that was contradicted by OBL releasing audio messages mocking President Obama - was just mistaken?
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:48 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is a city of 1 million people 35 miles to the north of the capital.

1 million? The place doesn't look that big on Google Maps, and Wikipedia says its population was 81k in 1998. Although I suppose it could have grown 10X in a decade.
posted by blue mustard at 9:50 AM on May 2, 2011

At this point, the only evidence we have of bin Laden's death is the U.S. Government's claim that he's dead, and blood on the floor at the stated location.

And the AQ contact quoted by the AFP who confirmed it.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:50 AM on May 2, 2011

During the Roman Republic (and after), there were many times where bodies of famous (and dangerous) leaders were disappeared, so that there'd be no one place for supporters to gather.

Though they often made quite a spectacle of the execution of their enemies.
posted by homunculus at 9:51 AM on May 2, 2011

The corpse was taken to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials told ABC News. The burial at sea was done in accordance with Muslim law -- a Muslim seaman conducted the process, said the prayers, and bin Laden's body was wrapped in the appropriate way.

Hahah, how would you like to be that guy?

"Quick, we need someone Muslim to say some prayers before we dump his body in the sea! You're muslim, you want to do it!?"

"Uh... no..."

posted by delmoi at 9:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [18 favorites]

yippie!
posted by Drasher at 9:52 AM on May 2, 2011

So knock it off.

No. If he's going to bring up this point, it's perfectly valid to question him on it, that's the way discussion goes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:52 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't blame lupus_yonderboy for being skeptical.

Way back when Saddam Hussein was captured, my first thought wasn't "America! Fuck Yeah!", it was "What news event are they attempting to cover up?"

So I Googled for "Bush signs", and sure enough, Bush signed the Patriot Act II the same day as Hussein was captured.

It's entirely reasonable to be skeptical, even cynical, given the past abuses of our new security and intelligence infrastructure (political terror alerts anyone?)
posted by formless at 9:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

clavdivs : FUCK YEAH, DIE YOU FUCK.

Poet_Lariat:
Seriously ?
Will Osama's death bring health care to 40 million Americans?

Will it bring a single job to an of the 50+million unemployed/under-employed Americans?

Will it bring a single criminal charge to any of the bankers making unheard of bonuses after holding the American financial system hostage to fraud and mismanagement?

Will it bring a single American soldier home or stop the tens of thousands of American men and women who get killed or maimed in our mid-East wars?

I'm glad you are so thrilled about this news but what does it change for the poor, the unemployed, the hungry and the thousands about to be maimed and killed this year in war.

Less bread.
More Circuses.

Point taken but knock off the sanctimony. Let's not confuse the unjust and brutal wars in Iraq and Afganistan with the unjust and heinous act organized by Osama bin Laden. The illegitimacy of one does not legitimize the other.

While, "Fuck yeah, die you fuck" may ring hollow to you and I, there are plenty of people who lost love ones, or live near Ground Zero for whom the terrorist attack was deeply personal. None of us has the right to tell them what to feel about Osama bin Laden's death.
posted by En0rm0 at 9:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

The reason that there is external evidence, such as the Twitter guy and the crashed helicopter and the video of bloody contents of the compound and the locals saying that there was an attack, is because there was an attack. The helicopter did crash. The compound was bloodied. The Twitter guy did tweet.

Yeah, given the evidence that there was an attack, by American forces, why would the US government use this particular attack, with the crash and all, as The Reason to dig up bin Laden's corpse and present it as newly dead? This isn't the first attack by American forces inside Pakistan, nor would it have been the first use of drones if it had gone down like that. Why use this one, now, rather than an earlier one, if he's really been dead since 2006 and we were just covering it up?
posted by rtha at 9:53 AM on May 2, 2011

l_y isn't trolling or being unreasonable. It's fair to ask the questions he's asking.

skepticism is not unreasonable. unreasonable is making premature speculation of the existence of a conspiracy of unprecedented scope, ostensibly because we haven't been given sufficient evidence for it, based on lupus_yonderboy's vague suspicions, which he asks us to consider although he can give us absolutely no evidence for them.

skepticism is exactly asking for more evidence for a claim even though you don't have evidence against it.
posted by milestogo at 9:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, and re:trials versus killing.... what I originally said is also being distorted somewhat. I'm not particularly upset that bin Laden is dead. I just think this is likely to be an inferior outcome to the alternatives. An arrest and a trial would have been much better from the standpoint of justice, the rule of law, and world opinion. Leaving him alive would probably have been better from the standpoint of Arab opinion. As far as the entire religious Arab world is concerned, he's now basking with his 72 houris; he died fighting for Islam.

I'm not saying him being dead is a bad outcome, just that the other alternatives were better. And the soldiers may not have had a choice, I utterly recognize that.

But if arresting him was an option and we chose not to exercise it, we fucked up.
posted by Malor at 9:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why did they bury him at sea? Was there any specific reason given for this? They just don't want to deal with transporting/burying the body publicly?
posted by cell divide at 9:57 AM on May 2, 2011

that said I think that dirtdirt's 4 options present a very compelling reason why the main evidence we have right now is the President's speech.
posted by milestogo at 9:57 AM on May 2, 2011

The corpse was taken to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials told ABC News. The burial at sea was done in accordance with Muslim law -- a Muslim seaman conducted the process, said the prayers, and bin Laden's body was wrapped in the appropriate way.

WhenI heard the news I was wondering about this, about how would we treat the body. I'm glad the US saw fit to just kill the guy, but I was worried his corpse might receive a victory lap. This is sensitive stuff and it is important to not disrespect an entire culture by proxy. So I'm glad OBL was "disposed of" in a timely and respectful manner.
posted by elwoodwiles at 9:58 AM on May 2, 2011

> No one here agrees with you because your opinions aren't rational.

Your claim is factually incorrect - at least one person here agrees with me as I have received me-mail to that effect.

I am claiming that I simply have not got enough evidence to believe or disbelieve. Calling me "irrational" isn't supplying that evidence.

What it comes down to is the fact that many people here unskeptically believe the word of the US government, and think you are irrational if you do not.

I on the other hand think I should not believe or disbelieve until I have hard evidence, considering that I have been fooled by them time and time again.

I am suspending judgement on this matter until I have hard evidence of some type - something I expect that I'll probably, but not certainly, get in the next day or so. Why this makes some of you so very angry... well, I shan't speculate but really, you should all calm down.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Afghanistan War was originally presented to us as exactly that - an attempt to kill or capture Bin Laden. We were presented with progress reports, thrilled at Osama's near escape in Tora Bora, and that sort of thing.

And the Iraq war was originally presented as an attempt to disarm Saddam's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and end Hussein's support of Al-Qaeda. They were lying to you. Remember when Rumsfeld confirmed that bin Laden had a bunch of giant James Bond villain cave complexes deep inside mountains in Afghanistan? There was never even a single one. No one ever lived in a cave. Bin Laden was incredibly wealthy, he probably lived in luxury all along and had plenty of people that were either supportive, afraid, or indifferent about his continued presence in their proximity all these years. I'd go further and say that Pakistan is likely not at all embarassed by this development as their priorities were likely significantly different than the US' in hunting down Osama bin Laden.
posted by Hoopo at 9:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, a heartbeat after hitting Post there, I realized that with Guantanamo still open, bin Laden might have ended up there, which would have absolutely been the worst outcome of all.

With Congress refusing to allow fair trials to terrorism suspects, killing him might be better than arresting him.
posted by Malor at 9:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

As far as the entire religious Arab world is concerned, he's now basking with his 72 houris; he died fighting for Islam.

Uh... no. There are millions upon millions of religious Muslims who don't think that OBL was any sort of Islamic representative or even a good Muslim. You need to be more specific.
posted by cell divide at 9:59 AM on May 2, 2011 [14 favorites]

From the ABC article about the handling of Bin Laden's body:

"It was reported that bin Laden was buried in a sealed cement box. "

Dang, they weren't playing. But it makes me wonder if he'll eventually be found decades from now.

"Khalid Latif, chaplain at New York University and director of its Islamic Center, said that Islamic law is "flexible" in how it handles burial, especially in this case. The question would be not "how to bury a body, but how Osama bin Laden's body would be buried."

He said that the government's approach was reasonable -- letting bin Laden's body, "wash back and forth in the sea."

posted by cashman at 9:59 AM on May 2, 2011

Yeah, given the evidence that there was an attack, by American forces, why would the US government use this particular attack, with the crash and all, as The Reason to dig up bin Laden's corpse and present it as newly dead? This isn't the first attack by American forces inside Pakistan, nor would it have been the first use of drones if it had gone down like that. Why use this one, now, rather than an earlier one, if he's really been dead since 2006 and we were just covering it up?

I didn't say that we've been covering up his death for years; I said he's been dead for years.

These guys in this compound just provided the evidence very recently. The CIA confirmed, and then executed. The longer those guys were allowed to live, the lesser the chance that the operation -- i.e. turning Bin Laden's death into a political and military publicity coup -- would succeed. As was said earlier in this thread (about a different topic), you have your target, you shoot it.

(I once again hasten to note that I do not believe this)
posted by Flunkie at 9:59 AM on May 2, 2011

Why did they bury him at sea?

They don't want a a physical place where people can visit the body.

Of course, his followers will be comforted by "his presence" in the ocean, which reaches all over the world and indeed now his IS water, the very stuff of life, or some such BS.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:00 AM on May 2, 2011

I'm not particularly upset that bin Laden is dead. I just think this is likely to be an inferior outcome to the alternatives. An arrest and a trial would have been much better from the standpoint of justice, the rule of law, and world opinion.

Exactly!

Can you imagine bringing Osama down with our justice system and laws, not with our guns? That'd be the ultimate sign that the America everyone worldwide used to love is back. Win with our political and legal system, not with our might.

It's perhaps somewhat naive of me, we've always used our might to further our interests, but it's become too overt lately. This feels like a conservative win, not a liberal one.
posted by formless at 10:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, sorry, Flunkie - I wasn't actually questioning you and your "here's how the conspiracy could work" comment, and I understand that you don't believe that. I was using more as a jumping-off point to ask those who *do* actually think there's been a conspiracy to address the issue I raised. Apologies for the confusion!
posted by rtha at 10:02 AM on May 2, 2011

I am claiming that I simply have not got enough evidence to believe or disbelieve.

There is also the documented history of false evidence submitted as truth by actors involved in this incident.

If the various parties involved had never had such a history then the statement of your opinions aren't rational would have a basis for being correct.

you should all calm down

And if you are pissed off about someone noting the lying of the involved parties than perhaps you should think about getting those parties to stop with the lying.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:03 AM on May 2, 2011

They probably won't release any evidence because Bin Laden is an alien, obviously not a grey since greys are much shorter. It was quite possible he was a Goa'uld who survived the destruction of the Goa'uld empire. I've heard rumors that "seal team six" is actually a task force composed of a rebel Jaffa leader, several air force officers and an archeologist, and that they are armed with alien technology.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

...well, I shan't speculate....

why stop now? you've already pretty much entered birther territory here.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Transcripts: Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden, and Hillary Clinton’s Remarks on bin Laden’s Death.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:05 AM on May 2, 2011

The questions are already being asked.

- How much will bin Laden's death impact Obama's re-election?
- Look How Obama's Re-Election Odds Exploded Higher After The Bin Laden News
- Killing bin Laden: Did Obama just win re-election in 2012?

Keep an eye on the Daily Presidential Tracking Poll tomorrow. Unfortunately the polling for today was done after the announcement of the news last night.

Also, this thread is bringing Firefox to it's knees.
posted by chemoboy at 10:06 AM on May 2, 2011

why stop now? you've already pretty much entered birther territory here.

Oh, for god's sake, beard. He's just pointing out that there isn't really any evidence supporting Obama's assertion. This is light-years away from birther territory, which has been denying very real and solid evidence for a couple of years now.
posted by Malor at 10:08 AM on May 2, 2011

As far as the entire religious Arab world is concerned, he's now basking with his 72 houris; he died fighting for Islam.

hey remember that time timothy mcveigh died and the entire western world was really upset
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I wanted to comment on the "deathers?" question up-thread. My uncle, who is a conspiracy theory nut, sent me an email first thing this morning stating that Bin Laden was killed in December of 2001. I deleted it, so I can't quote from more, but yeah, there are Deathers out there.
posted by gc at 10:08 AM on May 2, 2011

> Can you imagine bringing Osama down with our justice system and laws, not with our guns?

Unfortunately not. Imagine today's news instead brought us a Bin Laden in chains - can you imagine what a mess that would be? How long it would take to clean up? How much bickering there would be between the Democrats and the Republicans, how their attention would be drawn for months onto this?

If the story we are being presented is correct, it probably worked out the best for all concerned, even Bin Laden (who, I'm sure, had zero interest in making a perp walk).
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I live above a bar. Last night, as I'm drifting off to sleep, I hear a bro in the alleyway yell: "Mission Accomplished DAWG! Bin laden's dead, and I'm drunk. I'm 2 for 2. God bless America!"

Can't make this shit up.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 10:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [18 favorites]

I don't really have anything new to add with regard to evidence one way or the other. However, having been on the other side of rapidly developing, large-scale events with lots of public interest, this smells right to me. The president's office and the military are filtering through a lot of info trying to decide what to release and how to release it. The transparency so far is pretty good. They could have sat on this for days, even weeks before it had to come out, but they apparently chose to do this as near to the event as possible. Given how much info they have to process and the sensitivity of the stuff people are asking for, I'm not at all surprised at the pace of information release and of what has been released.

It feels truthful to me, and, in fact, feels like they are truly trying to be as transparent as they can about it. Real independent verification will take weeks or months, the work of NGOs and journalists on the ground to get the whole story. It's hardly reasonable to insist that it happen NOW! I'm cool with US officials taking their time to release more info, like pictures. There's no do-overs in information release. Horrific or inflamitory images can't be unreleased.

If this is a fabrication, or even a distortion (e.g., he surrendered by was executed on the spot), I expect the truth will come out. The Cambodian horrors and the Bosian ones, for that matter, took years to come to light.

All that said, the way the US government are handling information release leads me to believe that they are honestly trying their best here, even being laudably transparent.
posted by bonehead at 10:10 AM on May 2, 2011

It's perhaps somewhat naive of me, we've always used our might to further our interests, but it's become too overt lately. This feels like a conservative win, not a liberal one

Dude was offered chance to surrender, did not. Even Glenn Greenwald acknowledges that it was legitimate.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:11 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's skepticism, healthy skepticism, and pointless skepticism.
posted by smackfu at 10:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

And if you are pissed off about someone noting the lying of the involved parties than perhaps you should think about getting those parties to stop with the lying.

Impossible.
posted by futz at 10:12 AM on May 2, 2011

EmpressCallipygos: "think long: ... Perhaps we should pause to honor the memories of the innocent civilian dead, of all nations."

That's an idea I have for a memorial somewhere (ideally in DC, but ya know... we couldn't actually memorialize innocent people!)

I called it The Martyrdome (of course, the name could easily change... Fount of the Innocents?)

anyways, I think it's a great idea, but then again, we could easily pick on it, because, ya know... Just one more pretense that we give a shit as much as we say we do... (we meaning US... I know some of y'all aren't in the US)...
posted by symbioid at 10:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder, thsmchnekllsfascists, how can you know, with any certainty, that it was a bro who was responsible for that exclamation and not, say, a hipster?
posted by notyou at 10:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

He's just pointing out that there isn't really any evidence supporting Obama's assertion.

Except for the AQ guy interviewed by the AFP that no one seems to talk about. Is he in on the conspiracy, is he not really from AQ, is AQ lying to him, is he being lied to by people in Pakistan, is the AFP lying, or what?

Also except for the fact that this is not even just Obama's assertion. The idea that the government is lying about this implicates not just Obama, but the entirety of his administration. The assertion that the Obama administration has concertedly lied about the discrete fact of OBL's death is an absolutely extraordinary assertion. One would have to be extremely credulous to give this assertion any credibility without any evidence.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:14 AM on May 2, 2011

Oh, for god's sake, beard. He's just pointing out that there isn't really any evidence supporting Obama's assertion.

Other than the video from the house and the guy who twittered it, and Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula confirming it and calling it a "catastrophe."
posted by Ironmouth at 10:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Mission Accomplished DAWG! Bin laden's dead, and I'm drunk. I'm 2 for 2. God bless America!"

This is the first thing in this thread that has made me smile. Although I might have missed a doozy in the 600 or so messages I gave up on while I slept.
posted by chemoboy at 10:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's perhaps somewhat naive of me, we've always used our might to further our interests, but it's become too overt lately. This feels like a conservative win, not a liberal one

Dude was offered chance to surrender, did not. Even Glenn Greenwald acknowledges that it was legitimate.

Legitimate yes, preferred no:

I'd have strongly preferred that Osama bin Laden be captured rather than killed so that he could be tried for his crimes and punished in accordance with due process (and to obtain presumably ample intelligence).

Also, regarding celebrating this solution:

It seems telling that hunting someone down and killing them is one of the few things that still produce these feelings of nationalistic unity
posted by formless at 10:17 AM on May 2, 2011

He's just pointing out that there isn't really any evidence supporting Obama's assertion. This is light-years away from birther territory, which has been denying very real and solid evidence for a couple of years now.

no, he's pointing out that there is not sufficiently direct evidence for him to believe it. which is exactly the argument that could be made by anyone who remains a birther. in fact, there now exists more corroboration for bin laden's death than for the location of obama's birth. in fact, i don't see how you could suspect the former without considering the latter, which is kid's stuff in comparison.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:17 AM on May 2, 2011

Ad hominem wrote:
> They probably won't release any evidence because Bin Laden is an alien [...]

This is an ongoing and really fascinating theme in this thread - the implication that doubting the unsupported word of the US government is the same as insanity.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also except for the fact that this is not even just Obama's assertion. The idea that the government is lying about this implicates not just Obama, but the entirety of his administration.

Yeah it would require hundreds of people to fake this, and some of those people are probably republican supporters. The republicans would absolutely want to exploit Obama lying like this in the election, since they don't benefit from this at all.
posted by delmoi at 10:17 AM on May 2, 2011

I wonder how it will go down among his admirers if helmet cam pics emerge showing OBL trying to use his own youngest wife as a human shield.
posted by localroger at 10:18 AM on May 2, 2011

Osama's dead, so cortex wrote a funny song
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's possible the soldiers on site or their bosses simply got it wrong. No deception necessary, they could just be mistaken.

After the firefight that killed Osama bin Laden, the U.S. used "multiple methods" to positively identify his remains. A senior White House official tells NBC News that the U.S. has completed the DNA analysis and it has come back with a nearly 100 percent match to his relatives. Osama bin Laden's death has been confirmed, with the DNA evidence providing a match with 99.9 percent confidence.

NBC News has also been told that the CIA'S facial recognition technology has identified bin Laden's face with 95 percent certainty -- considered a very high accuracy -- after comparing it to known pictures of him. A woman believed to be his wife also identified him by name, a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters Monday.

White House officials did not immediately say where or how the testing was done but the test explains why President Barack Obama was confident to announce the death to the world Sunday night. Obama provided no details on the identification process.

The U.S. is believed to have collected DNA samples from bin Laden family members in the years since the 9/11 attacks that triggered the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the U.S. also had fingerprints or some other means to identify the body on site.

It’s possible that the government collected samples from some of the places where bin Laden lived over the years, said Dr. George Michalopoulos, chairman of the department of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Comparing those samples with the ones from bin Laden’s body would be the best way to identify the remains, said Michalopoulos.

“One way to identify a body is through comparison with blood samples or with DNA from a toothbrush or comb,” Michalopoulos said. “That’s extremely accurate.”

Without samples from bin Laden himself, pathologists could have identified the body in much the same way as some of the 9/11 victims were identified -- by comparing blood and tissue samples with those from close relatives.

“If you use DNA from immediate relatives such as children or parents, you can make an identification with about 95 percent accuracy,” said Michalopoulos.

In the case of some of those who died in 9/11 family members were asked to supply hair samples from brushes of their loved ones, said Dr. John Tomaszewski, president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

If this is how bin Laden has been identified, “it’s a very ironic twist,” Tomaszewski said. ... *

posted by ericb at 10:18 AM on May 2, 2011

Bin Laden was an old man

Fifty four is the new forty four.
posted by IndigoJones at 10:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

how can you know, with any certainty, that it was a bro who was responsible for that exclamation and not, say, a hipster?

Hipsters are too cool for patriotism. They were into the United States back when it was the 13 colonies. It totally sold out with Manifest Destiny.
posted by maryr at 10:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

This is an ongoing and really fascinating theme in this thread - the implication that doubting the unsupported word of the US government is the same as insanity.

Well, it's just a question of competence. Like: is the U.S. government capable of pulling off a conspiracy like this? They couldn't keep torture secret, and that's something that probably everyone involved really wanted to keep secret. I just don't think that part of the U.S. government could keep something like this secret, not only from the American people, but also from other parts of the government, and people who are both loyal to the republicans and have security clearances and connections with other people involved. It just doesn't seem realistic.
posted by delmoi at 10:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ok boys, I think we've got something here. A week ago The US President went to Islamabad to meet Talibans that could lead him to OBL. But it was a trap. The Pakistani President who invited Obama was a clone, and as soon as they all entered the house, the president's men were paralyzed by some sort of rays or gas or whatever). OBL's fellow mad surgeon stole Obama's face and reconstructed it on OBL's skull. ffw : The President's men awake hours later. It seems that one of them has crushed OBL under a piece of concrete. They all go back to the helicopter. As it soars above the ground, OBL smiles in the dark.
posted by nicolin at 10:20 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

... while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know it’s intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become a monster that we are attempting to fight."

- Chris Hedges

Nthing those would have preferred a trial and get a little sick to their stomach watching people celebrate.

Honestly, the celebration is really bizarre. It does feel like the flipside of things like Fallujah.

I mean, I can see why Democrats would be jubilant today. But plain old human beings? Not sure I get it, other than pure vengeance.

I just think this is likely to be an inferior outcome to the alternatives.

Much inferior.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:21 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Other than the video from the house and the guy who twittered it, and Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula confirming it and calling it a "catastrophe."

Each of these has come in recently, since we started this thread. Each of these is a piece of evidence that has some value in convincing me or any skeptical person of the truth of the story.

I still reserve judgement until there is somewhat more evidence - and if there is soon more evidence that convinces me that the story is as presented, it won't make me feel "wrong", nor will it prevent me next time from withholding judgement until there is enough evidence.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why did they bury him at sea?

What country would want him? Seriously. Think about it.

Similarly a reason why we used Navy Seals. No country in the area can be blamed for having been the blast off point for a US operation.
posted by IndigoJones at 10:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

This is an ongoing and really fascinating theme in this thread - the implication that doubting the unsupported word of the US government is the same as insanity.

I'm just ribbing the deathers. All in all I think the most likely scenario is correct, a military operation kills OBL and tosses his body off a ship is much more likely than a faked operation, hundreds of people lying, and various CIA plants, all for a lie that has very little upside. But we all saw Wag the Dog, I guess anything is possible
posted by Ad hominem at 10:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I didn't realize I had been holding my breath for nearly ten years.
posted by msali at 10:25 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

I mean, I can see why Democrats would be jubilant today. But plain old human beings? Not sure I get it, other than pure vengeance.

If you think about people who aren't politically plugged in, less sophisticated, who have basically grown up with OBL on TV as the ultimate evil, finding out he's dead would probably pretty exciting. So I can understand why they're doing it.
posted by delmoi at 10:25 AM on May 2, 2011

Can you not see how these are completely and utterly different things?

But how can we know things are completely and utterly different, really? If we are skeptical, truly skeptical, than we can't actually really know if things are either the same or different or even if there are things or not things.

I am simply claiming that we have not been given enough evidence, and that the US government is a historically unreliable source - so that a skeptical person ought not to believe this until more evidence, one way or the other, is forthcoming.

That's great. Thanks for clarifying things. I see it differently. I would say that a skeptical person would be very skeptical of a government actually making such a claim as true when in fact it was false and all that would entail in regard to getting this false message out. Governments generally lie about things they want to hide from the public. What is being potentially hidden here or obscured? What is the reasonable or even unreasonable motive? I'm very skeptical that Obama and the U.S. government, other Al-Qaeda representatives, and the like, are all in on a possible conspiracy.

It seems to be that genuine skepticism would lead one to feel that there is a very low possibility that Osama is still alive and very skeptical that Obama and the like would bother making the claim that he is falsely, just because U.S. governments have lied before. Have they never told the truth? Why doesn't that count?

Sure it's quite possible that he isn't dead but skepticism is the last thing to lead to such a conclusion given the context and circumstances.

There are literally dozens of interviews with Bin Laden that you can find in seconds. There a photographs of him from childhood to after 9/11. etc. etc.

And those sources that you can find in seconds were built up over years, not hours. I can find evidence (and so can others) of a rather dashing Victorian robot as well. Of course we know that photographs and evidence and stuff can be faked but being selectively skeptical is a great convenience.

It might be possible that Obama got the Boilerplate guy to help in this and it might be possible that it is all just a lie and sure, we don't know until we have seen the evidence by whatever criteria passes for believable and verifiable evidence but it seems that that sort of evidence would be rejected because it too comes from the government or an agent of the government or an agent of a terrorist organization. So what evidence would qualify?
posted by juiceCake at 10:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

They couldn't keep torture secret, and that's something that probably everyone involved really wanted to keep secret.

Not saying I agree with the conspiracy angle for this story, but the administration most definitely did NOT want the torture kept secret. One of the key benefits of torture is the psychological effect it has not only on the victims tortured, but the allies of the victims.

There are a few very good reasons for leaking out the use of torture to our enemies:

To create a more radical enemy, one who knows that if he is captured he will be tortured, thereby leading to further use of mass-casualty warfare techniques. In addition, this makes it easier for the torturers to sell the war at home.

To send a message to those on the fence about supporting our enemy that we are serious.

It's not right, and won't help with the purported reason, intelligence acquisition, but it does serve some twisted purposes.
posted by formless at 10:28 AM on May 2, 2011

Why did they bury him at sea? .... What country would want him? Seriously. Think about it.

Exactly.

"The U.S. government said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to take bin Laden's body, for fear it would create a permanent shrine. Unconfirmed reports indicate that two countries turned down requests to claim the body: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan."

posted by ericb at 10:28 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

It does feel like the flipside of things like Fallujah.

Not to me. As noted above, I am also a little put off by the rah-rahing, but come on: a nation cheering the slaughter of 3000 innocent civilians is fundamentally pretty different than a nation cheering the death of the guy responsible.
posted by Aquaman at 10:29 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I still reserve judgement until there is somewhat more evidence - and if there is soon more evidence that convinces me that the story is as presented, it won't make me feel "wrong", nor will it prevent me next time from withholding judgement until there is enough evidence.

The problem with this stance, particularly as forcefully and as "hypotheically" as you've stated it, is that appear that you have an asymmtotic relationship to your evidence required for belief ranther than a finite one. If no finite amount of indirect evidence will convince you, cause that's probably all we're ever going to get, then you're indistiguishable from a birther, frankly.

Waiting for more evidence, reserving judgement is fine and healthy. So wait and see. Spinning hypotheticals that require multiple bad actors, all behaving against (public) type, puts one in the same ballpark of the psycho-ceramicist.
posted by bonehead at 10:30 AM on May 2, 2011

I know that a trial of OBL in the USA would not work. That is a fact. Can you imagine the out come of a not guilty verdict? But by embracing a fair trial you accept that as a possibility.

There's no point in a trial if the verdict is preordained. Convict the man on his direct, actual crimes, not the crimes he supposedly inspired.

Now we'll never know a lot of details. Aside from the complete dismissal of the ideals of American justice, the practical loss of information is considerable.

This takedown vindicates John Kerry's position during the 2004 election that the War on Terror is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Again, I was ahead of the curve on that one. That's what I said post-9/11. Bin Laden should have been tried in an international tribunal for the crimes of which he was accused.

If you think about people who aren't politically plugged in, less sophisticated, who have basically grown up with OBL on TV as the ultimate evil, finding out he's dead would probably pretty exciting.

So it's the "nations as ballgames" thing? i.e. "We won!"? "He killed a bunch of us, but by golly we killed him back!"?

It's like a Div. I football powerhouse tearing down the goalposts after an overtime win again a podunk Div. III school.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:30 AM on May 2, 2011

This takedown vindicates John Kerry's position during the 2004 election that the War on Terror is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world." Intelligence-gathering following by a super-sized SWAT team took bin Laden down.

So fighting a decentralized crime organization requires good police work, fostering strong connections with communities to provide information, and the use of small teams with a clear, achievable goal and not rolling out all your expensive tanks you've been itching to play with ever since the Soviets totally failed to deliver on that ground war you wanted? You mean you can't just have WW2 cosplay?

Huh.
posted by The Whelk at 10:30 AM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

I suspect he probably is dead, and probably was killed just when Obama said he was, but we don't KNOW it. Those of you piling on lupus_yonderboy are distorting his arguments in strange and unfair ways. He is correct that we don't know, and his suspicion that bin Laden may have been dead for several years, given the other evidence, is hardly unreasonable.

I'm not sure what "other evidence" you're referring to, given that there is some supporting evidence for some heavy shit going down at the time the government claimed it went down.

You're correct that we don't "know-know" what happened, but there is somewhat more evidence to suggest "probably yes" than there is "probably no". So while some healthy skepticism is always good, I'm not sure to what end it achieves here. empath had a good point - that on top of questioning the evidence, the real "smell test" for a conspiracy should be to ask one's self "who would profit from this cover-up and how?"

I mean, there are scientific theorems of which we also don't have "direct evidence," but we accept them because there's enough to accept "this is probably the way things are." But we retain just enough skepticism that when actual evidence comes to light proving us wrong, we can then re-visit the theorem. It's not like we dismiss some theorems outright because "we don't have direct evidence, so we shouldn't accept this."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:31 AM on May 2, 2011

formless: "Can you imagine bringing Osama down with our justice system and laws, not with our guns?"

I honestly believe this would be an impossible sell with the current lot of cowards in Congress who were terrified of trying Guantanamo detainees (either as civilians or combatants). I'm not saying that what actually happened is in any way preferable, but there's a long way to go between finding the man, capturing the man, extraditing the man and (finally) trying the man.
posted by boo_radley at 10:32 AM on May 2, 2011

> Like: is the U.S. government capable of pulling off a conspiracy like this?

They've done it before.

I mean, isn't the Iraq war an example of such a conspiracy, where the government presented deliberately falsified information to the nation and started yet another destructive war?

And there are tons of other perfectly reasonable possibilities that aren't conspiracy theories - just off the top of my head, the US could have unknowingly killed someone else by mistake and then botched the DNA test, or had someone deliberately misreport it because he had an ax to grind.

I hasten to assure you that I don't believe that theory particularly, nor am I proposing any conspiracy explanation at all, I'm simply proposing to wait for enough information.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:33 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's like a Div. I football powerhouse tearing down the goalposts after an overtime win again a podunk Div. III school.

If you recall, we had 2 very tall goalposts torn down.
Fuck him. I'm glad he's dead.
posted by Bighappyfunhouse at 10:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

a nation cheering the slaughter of 3000 innocent civilians is fundamentally pretty different than a nation cheering the death of the guy responsible

clarification: when I referred to Fallujah, i was referring to the death of the Blackwater/Xe mercenaries and the subsequent desecration in the streets.

so it's more like comparing the death and desecration of 4 mercenaries with the targeted assassination of a terrorist leader. sure, i see differences. but I also see similarities.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

How much of a coincidence is it that one of the Bali bombers, Umar Patek, was captured in Abbottabad a few weeks ago?
posted by blue mustard at 10:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

i'm sure if we discuss this thoroughly enough, we will surely discern the truth. now, how we coming on that JFK thing?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 10:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Delmoi, the US government wasn't able to keep the fact that it was torturing people secret, but it successfully implied that the people alleging torture were kooks who had an axe to grind. This went on for years.

In the case at hand the subject of the conspiracy wouldn't be the attack itself: it would be the way it was conducted or its outcome. Suppose Osama has really been dead for years, but Al Qaeda kept using him for a figurehead. It turns out that this house had a few of Osama's relatives in it, accounting for the DNA evidence. The US doesn't want to admit that it got things wrong; the corpses have inconvenient bullet holes to the head (including the woman who was allegedly being used as a human shield); Al Qaeda guy is hardly likely to admit that his organisation has been winging it since 2006; so just drop a body in the sea and say that you've confirmed Osama's identity. There's no way to rebut it, and if any inconvenient lab technician comes forward to say that DNA matching via relatives is inexact, just say that you confirmed it via other secret methods that you're not at liberty to divulge.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:35 AM on May 2, 2011

...nor will it prevent me next time from withholding judgement until there is enough evidence.

hehe...well, you still need somewhat more evidence (a point-by-point consideration i think would be very interesting in terms of where precisely it meets your threshold of proof); but at least you have gotten enough to start backtracking. you haven't been withholding judgment; you came in here with alternate scenarios and conspiracy theories, from your stated assumption that bin laden had been dead for years to calling into question why we haven't gotten evidence immediately. but good for you that it won't make you feel "wrong."
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:36 AM on May 2, 2011

... isn't the Iraq war an example of such a conspiracy, where the government presented deliberately falsified information to the nation and started yet another destructive war?

If those are your only criteria for similarity, sure.

But there's a key difference: We all knew the Bushites were full of shit, and we knew it based on publicly available evidence combined with really very reasonable suppositions. That's not really the case, here.
posted by lodurr at 10:36 AM on May 2, 2011

>Why did they bury him at sea?

They don't want a a physical place where people can visit the body.

That, and further upthread there is a passage in the Qu'ran which also says something like, if you fear that a deceased person's enemies would want to dig up his corpse and "desecrate" it, burial at sea is recommended. If Muslim tradition was also taken into consideration when it came to disposing of the remains, that was pretty damn smart.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Like lupus yonderboy I also find it a bit weird the way this story has come out. In particular, I read somewhere that he has already been buried at sea, and that struck me as immediately strange.

Given the importance of this announcement and the amount of people involved the probability of a major conspiracy is really small. There would be too much incentive for someone to leak it, especially if that person didn't like Obama. (Obama orders fake Osama raid! say the headlines; it would sink him.) Thus I expect the raid likely went down pretty much as described.

However, the identity of the person who is supposedly bin Laden is the sticking point, and while I am happy to hear they confirmed it with a DNA test, I can imagine alternate scenarios where it turned out not to be bin Laden, yet they decided to pretend it was, and cover it up. Hastily dumping the body at sea would be consistent with such a scenario. This is what makes it feel strange to me. However, hastily dumping the body at sea is also consistent with a desire to put an end to this story and limit speculation on the identity of the corpse -- if even one third party did a DNA test there is a risk they would deliberately fudge it to embarrass Obama, for example, and then we would never hear the end of it.

What clinches it for me though is the risk that bin Laden, if still alive, would appear on TV denying his death. The US would never take such a risk. Thus, they are certain he is dead. I don't believe they would have done the raid and invented this story if they had that knowledge ahead of time. Thus I find the official story to be the most likely.
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

chemoboy: "CBS is reporting Osama Bin Laden's body will be "disposed of" so there will not be any sort of grave or shrine that anyone can collect around."

That's just patently ridiculous bullshit. We're talking fucking Salfists here. These are the guys who get really really pissed off when people start building shrines... Shrines to other "deities" (see: Bamiyan Buddhas), pictures of their own prophets (see: Mohammed Cartoon Controversy), graves of rival sects (Al-Askari Mosque for example; that may not be the one I'm thinking of precisely, but I recall at least one shrine/tomb being attacked because it was a sort of idolatry -- at least if memory serves me well)...

It might make for good propaganda, and maybe they (the PR folks at the top) really believe it (lots of people think a lot of delusional shit about their enemies).... But in the end, I think this shrine thing is just hokum.

I don't doubt he was killed, but I also don't think it fucking matters very much.

And I'm with the "fuck the cheering crowds" crowd. I'm a bit disappointed to see it in this thread, really. But MeFi is a diverse crowd... Others have covered that ground so I'll refrain from adding more noise.
posted by symbioid at 10:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

You would have to be extremely credulous to buy the conspiracy angle on this one. How does anything except more or less what Obama said comport with the live-tweeting and the AQ rep?

What scenario makes sense where AQ confirms and declares "catastrophic" the death of OBL, except when OBL has actually died over the weekend? The only way to tie that together would be to say that 1) the AQ rep is lying or 2) the AFP is lying.

I mean, isn't the Iraq war an example of such a conspiracy, where the government presented deliberately falsified information to the nation and started yet another destructive war?

The Iraq War is a good example because it shows how credulous the Bush administration was when it came to conceiving of a worst possible case scenario for Iraq, so as to justify their preconceived notion to invade and reconstruct the country as per their neoconservative beliefs. They stitched together their own assumptions and their own faulty evidence, shouting down alternative theories that contradicted their own set view.

It also shows how even the spectacularly dishonest Bush administration didn't have the chutzpah to, say, buy some dirty bombs, shove them in the Husseins' sock drawers, and then declare, "a-hah! WMDs! like we always said." Such a lie would have been immensely helpful to them, and yet for some reason they never even bothered.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:38 AM on May 2, 2011

Hitler dies. WWII in Europe falls apart and ends.

Osama dies. Nothing changes.

That's what's sad.
posted by stormpooper at 10:40 AM on May 2, 2011

"why should I believe the uncorroborated word of the US government on a subject of such great magnitude"

Because if he was still alive, or he had died of natural causes long ago, it would be easy for a video or other evidence to surface to make the US government look like idiots. And faking it would still require a real assault on a real fortified compound in Pakistan where real people with relatives and associate would really be killed. The idea that Obama would actively fake this is so wildly silly and outrageous that only a fool would think it might be faked.

That's why. You should believe it because you have a brain and can use it.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

WWII in Europe didn't fall apart and end because Hitler died, it ended because the Red Army pillaged and raped its way from Moscow to Berlin. The fight against terrorism isn't a conventional war; there are no capitals to take.
posted by Justinian at 10:44 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I wonder if the reason that Biden was not at the White House Correspondent's Dinner was that they knew he'd spill the beans, after a few drinks.

Biden doesn't drink.
posted by scatter gather at 10:45 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

In particular, I read somewhere that he has already been buried at sea, and that struck me as immediately strange.

Whereas I thought it was politically savvy, because -- like in Judaism -- Islam requires very fast burial, within that same day if possible (link goes to LobsterMitten's comment with links to information on Muslim burial customs).

It's hard to accuse the USA forces of being "disrespectful of Islam" when we're taking the pains to bury our enemy in accordance with Muslim tradition.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:47 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

That's just patently ridiculous bullshit. We're talking fucking Salfists here.

OK, stop right there: No, we're not.

We're talking (mostly) Sunnis if many different persuasions, not just Salfists.

Plus, you're taking that term "shrine" awfully literally.
posted by lodurr at 10:47 AM on May 2, 2011

That's what's sad.

Well, maybe not. I mean, back in the 20th century, the world's worst villains were able to kill 5-20 million people during a reign.

For those emotionally involved, I'll skip any lightweight analogies, but let's just say that today's overt villains seem to be doing much less damage. (It's the less obvious villains (including ourselves) who are the most dangerous ones now ...)

I mean, compare the damage Bin Laden has inflicted upon the U.S. with the damage inflicted daily by our lack of commitment to proper infrastructure. Poor transportation planning alone kills more people per week than Bin Laden ever could.

Yet there are people literally cheering in the streets.

That's what's sad.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:48 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

And there are tons of other perfectly reasonable possibilities that aren't conspiracy theories - just off the top of my head, the US could have unknowingly killed someone else by mistake and then botched the DNA test, or had someone deliberately misreport it because he had an ax to grind.

funny, you didn't mention those other 'reasonable' possibilities back when it was all about how the US has lied to you all your life.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:48 AM on May 2, 2011

This takedown vindicates John Kerry's position during the 2004 election that the War on Terror is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world." Intelligence-gathering following by a super-sized SWAT team took bin Laden down.

This is a talking point someone should push. Andrea Mitchell just framed a question to Republican Rep. Mike Rogers as, "You've said that we need a General Patton not an Elliot Ness. Are you now prepared to admit Obama is a Patton?"

Facepalm.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 10:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hi guys. Did I miss anything?

I see we're down to beanplating tinfoilhattery, so maybe not.

If you thought the SEALs were hard to put up with before, they're going to be insufferable now.
posted by warbaby at 10:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

As for burial at sea, if it is compatible with muslim traditions that is great, we absolutely do not want to be desecrating bodies. But we also could not bring it to the US, can you imagine the accusations that the US had brought back his body as some sort of sick trophy? If none of the logical places, such as the country of his birth, want him what are our options.

I think we we get proof of some sort. I don't think it is smart to provoke ire by splashing death photos and videos all over tv when emotions are probably so raw across most of the world.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:50 AM on May 2, 2011

I mean, if I was walking around with a bullet-proof vest with an Osama fired bullet in it, I would probably be insufferable too.
posted by rosswald at 10:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I wonder if the compound will be leveled as well to prevent it becoming a 'shrine' to recruit new martyrs.
posted by yeti at 10:51 AM on May 2, 2011

Here's a diagram of the building where Bin Laden was killed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:51 AM on May 2, 2011

Weird. I'm back from abroad, and heard rumors about bin Laden before the plane took off from Costa Rica. I was thinking, "Great, this thing again."

At the airport, after I thought I was finished with the customs area, I took a photo of a sign that said "Welcome to America" above a flag. Once I got down the stairs they took my passport and my boarding pass for my connecting flight because I was "taking pictures in a restricted area." They searched through my phone and my cameras. They made me delete the picture of the flag, after I had to explain that I had only taken one photo but two showed up because one was an HDR and the other was a regular exposure. They kept asking me about my personal life, and got concerned that I had met someone from Germany while I was in Costa Rica. They x-rayed jars of organic chocolate and coconut I had brought with me, and asked me where my family lived, where I was heading, when's the last time I had been here, there, etc.

And then I emerge into the airport with the headlines, with that stupid fucker's face all over the front page. People were giving high fives on the way to being virtually strip searched with backscatter x-ray machines.

Am I glad he's gone? Sure. Does it make any fucking difference? No. We've been losing the war on terror since the first day a bomb killed a civilian in Afghanistan, and the first day GW turned it into some bullshit crusade with his half-cocked allusions to righteous justice, and the first day an American citizen was stripped of their privacy because they want to travel.

Now all of my friends on Facebook are cheering this death, and I can't help but think of what bin Laden and his partners in crime were doing on 9/11. Celebrating the murder of people they consider their enemies, talking about how justice had finally been served, thank God/Allah, praise the heroes/martyrs.

I would celebrate a trial. I would celebrate a representation of constitutional values that trump simple bloodlust. I would celebrate something that divided us from a group of people who kill because they think they have justification for deciding who gets to live and who gets to die without even allowing them the right to a trial. But sitting there in the airport, deciding whether I'd like a government agent to have a picture of my genitals or put their hands all over me after they rifled through all of my personal effects for the crime of taking a photo, this whole thing rings hollow.

One dead Saudi Arabian financier is not going to change a decade of war and three trillion dollars in lost opportunities. It's not going to bring back anyone who died on 9/11, or any of the hundreds of thousand who died in the horror of wars that followed. It's not going to make America safer, or our children's future more bright. It's just another empty symbol in a long series of empty symbols.

This is just another photo op for another politician.
posted by notion at 10:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [49 favorites]

Mission Accomplished
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [20 favorites]

If you thought the SEALs were hard to put up with before, they're going to be insufferable now.

dude, at least it wasn't those blackwater guys!
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:52 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I mean, isn't the Iraq war an example of such a conspiracy, where the government presented deliberately falsified information to the nation and started yet another destructive war?

No. Its far worse. They really believed there were WMD, and thought the 'liberal' CIA was holding back on the evidence and being too cautious. The 'deception' part was just the laundering of stovepiped unreliable data through the NYT.

Anyone who thinks Bush 'lied' us into war hasn't been paying attention. That shit was in plain fucking sight just like it always is. Who the fuck was really surprised, for example, that N Vietnam routed the Ho Chi Minh trail through Cambodia and that the US would then bomb it? I mean really, if you are treating military victory in Vietnam as a legitimate goal, of course you are gonna bomb Cambodia and send troops in there. Of course.

In WWII we forced Iceland to accept our 'protection,'

The real crime was going to war in Iraq in the first place. You bet Bush thought there would be WMD and that he'd be greeted as a liberator.

The US government does it in plain fucking sight and the people go along, like they have in every country. The SPD voted war credits for Germany's WWI war of agression. It is a story as old as man.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think we we get proof of some sort
Should be, we will get proof of some sort. They can't afford to have a constant drumbeat of disbelief either. And if the reports are correct, Obama would no approve a bombing mission because he wanted proof.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:53 AM on May 2, 2011

"I read somewhere that he has already been buried at sea, and that struck me as immediately strange."

I'm having trouble thinking of any other plan for the corpse that doesn't lead to as many or more problems. If you want this thing finished forever and done, making the corpse vanish irrevocably is the only way.

If you turn the body over to anyone you then have a huge globally televised funeral that fans the flames of all sorts of things.

If you destroy the body you still have ashes etc, and potentially violate some religious taboo best avoided.

If you preserve the body on ice, or seal it in a cask you then have people demanding to see it forever.

Burial at sea = gone and vanished forever. Works for me.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:54 AM on May 2, 2011

Well, World War II ended because the one obstacle to Germany surrendering - Hitler - had been removed by his death. The condition of Germany didn't alter significantly between his death on May 1st and Berlin's surrender on May 2nd. There's nobody in a position to surrender on Al Qaeda's behalf, so that couldn't happen. On the plus side, Al Qaeda also has nothing like the resources of Germany.
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:54 AM on May 2, 2011

George W. Bush was eating dinner at a Dallas restaurant when word got to him. He rushed out, leaving Laura behind.
posted by toastedbeagle at 10:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

George W. Bush was eating dinner at a Dallas restaurant when word got to him. He rushed out, leaving Laura behind.

The man learns his lessons too late. Nice try though, George, nice try.
posted by Doublewhiskeycokenoice at 10:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

If you turn the body over to anyone you then have a huge globally televised funeral that fans the flames of all sorts of things.

First, we wanted to have another country take him, none would. Second, there's a 24 hour time limit on burials in islam.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:58 AM on May 2, 2011

Better option for the corpse than burying at sea? The Jeremy Bentham treatment. Better yet, set him up in a bar in downtown Manhattan and use him as coat rack.

Good day for the world. Let's go out in the streets and sing the world anthem.
posted by found missing at 10:58 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

George W. Bush was eating dinner at a Dallas restaurant when word got to him. He rushed out, leaving Laura behind.

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?
posted by EarBucket at 10:58 AM on May 2, 2011

Unless maybe the Secret Service didn't want him being mobbed in the restaurant if the news broke while he was there. But then why leave Laura?
posted by EarBucket at 10:59 AM on May 2, 2011

George W. Bush was eating dinner at a Dallas restaurant when word got to him. He rushed out, leaving Laura behind.

It's not too late to do something about Katrina, I guess.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

He forgot his goat book in the car?
posted by pracowity at 11:00 AM on May 2, 2011 [37 favorites]

> you came in here with alternate scenarios and conspiracy theories,

Not at all. I came here with no specific theories at all, simply a lack of belief in the story we were being presented, and a healthy skepticism due to the lack of hard evidence and the long delay since we last heard from Bin Laden. I did produce plausible scenarios, but to counter those who claimed that no scenario other than unquestioning belief in the government's story was even possible - I hope that each time I identified clearly that I did not believe in these specific scenarios either.

As more evidence comes to light, I become less skeptical about this story, but there's nothing wrong in not initially believing what I'm told by without evidence. My policy of doing this has served me extremely well on all sorts of news stories from the Oklahoma City bombings to the Iraq war and I recommend it to others without reservation.

Let me again reiterate - I did not come in with a belief in some other scenario, simply a lack of belief in the story which was being presented to us.

I frankly believe that it's each citizen's civic duty to maintain a healthy skepticism about their government and to politely demand proof of that government's statements - if only because they have lied to us so many times before and undoubtedly will again.

To equate this healthy skepticism to being a JFK conspiracist, lunar landing denier, UFO contactee, or simply crazy, as is being done above, implies a religious faith in the honesty of the government that I am very glad that I do not share.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:01 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?

Presidential Dine and Dash
posted by lampshade at 11:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Supposedly Obama himself called Bush to let him know what happened. There probably had to be some element of "message coordination"
posted by rosswald at 11:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?

Actually, I think this is probably the polite thing to do. If I have to take a phone call that's not, "We're here," or "Parking is on the OTHER side of the street," I will usually step outside.
posted by geoff. at 11:02 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Press conference live. He once again says that Osama had the opportunity to surrender.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:03 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?

He was president when the operation that culminated last night began. Even though he said OBL wasn't a priority in 2002, I'm sure the people operating underneath him didn't feel that way. Either way, he's also responsible for killing OBL.
posted by cell divide at 11:04 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

This has been an interesting thread, at least insofar as demonstrating that a number of mefites I previously respected are completely fucking bonkers.
posted by unSane at 11:05 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

He was president when the operation that culminated last night began. Even though he said OBL wasn't a priority in 2002, I'm sure the people operating underneath him didn't feel that way. Either way, he's also responsible for killing OBL.

No. He was not. This operation began last year.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:06 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Press conference live. He once again says that Osama had the opportunity to surrender.

Thanks to those posting links, news and information.
posted by cashman at 11:07 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

What am I supposed to do with the souvenir t-shirt of a crosshair over OBL's head and "AMERICA'S #1 MOST WANTED" on it? It would just be tacky to wear it now.
posted by fuq at 11:08 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

elpapacito writes "The fact that he was picked in Pakistan gives an incredible excuse to invade and get all the nukes in the area under control. My bet: the next is not Iran."

This would do nothing to control all the nukes in the area as it wouldn't affect India.

Dasein writes "No shit. I am in awe of the fact that they were able to actually enter his compound, shoot him, and get his body out without a single American being killed. You've got to believe he had some serious bodyguards, after all. Those are some mad CQB skillz. Delta Force (or whoever) represent."

Seems like absolute loyalty would be more important than mad body guard skills. It's quite possible his personal body guards were incompetent but loyal.

Ambrosia Voyeur writes "That Google Maps location isn't legit, is it? Seems so very central, plus being terribly conveniently surrounded by hospitals and schools, etc."

The majority of grow op houses are located in expensive neighbourhoods.
posted by Mitheral at 11:08 AM on May 2, 2011

No. He was not. This operation began last year.

This morning on NPR they said that the courier that lead them to the compound was first identified by US intelligence agents 4 years ago, which suggests that they were looking for that link even before then. Perhaps I am mis-using "operation"?
posted by cell divide at 11:08 AM on May 2, 2011

Press conference live. He once again says that Osama had the opportunity to surrender.

If this is true, this is an important fact. You can't always take someone alive during law enforcement exercises if they refuse to surrender. I hope it gets the attention it deserves, and fuck the political consequences.
posted by notion at 11:09 AM on May 2, 2011

"To equate this healthy skepticism to being a JFK conspiracist [...] implies a religious faith in the honesty of the government that I am very glad that I do not share."

Not so much. You are being pretty fast and loose with your definition of "healthy skepticism". What you are engaging in seems much closer to wild conspiracy theory than skepticism.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:09 AM on May 2, 2011

He's just pointing out that there isn't really any evidence supporting Obama's assertion. This is light-years away from birther territory, which has been denying very real and solid evidence for a couple of years now.

Evidence provided by the...(wait for it)...the *gasp!* the government! *Dhun Dhun DHUUUN!*

Maybe Lupis Yonderboy could get Donald Trumps team of experts to look at the evidence for the raid. Otherwise one might suspect he has such an investment in his "Osama's been dead for years theory that no amount of evidence will be enough to convince him.

I'd like to make it clear that I'm not saying that Lupis Yonderboy is a crank in the style of a Birther. I'm simply saying we have no real evidence he isn't, so I'm going to withhold judgement until he can provide live video or other firm proof he isn't a conspiracy nut.
posted by happyroach at 11:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I blame the Internet for the fact that seemingly, with anything breaking in the news, there are now droves of people trying to be the loudest skeptic; as if they'll be winning something in the (unlikely) event that their disconnected thought spasms prove remotely true.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Also: am I correct interpreting the presidential timeline over the weekend to be:
Make fun of Donald Trump at WH correspondent's dinner-->lulz-->Arrive home-->Call Sam Fisher and tell him to go ahead and shoot Osama...
?
posted by fuq at 11:12 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Brennan may have revealed more than he intended here. Someone asked him if there was tension when Pakistan scrambled jets before the chopper was across the border. His response was that the mission was planned to minimize the chances of engagement with Pakistani forces and that "thankfully, no Pakistani forces were engaged".

Is there any way to read that besides the SEALs having rules of engagement which included neutralizing any Pakistani forces they came in contact with?
posted by Justinian at 11:12 AM on May 2, 2011

And there are tons of other perfectly reasonable possibilities that aren't conspiracy theories - just off the top of my head, the US could have unknowingly killed someone else by mistake and then botched the DNA test, or had someone deliberately misreport it because he had an ax to grind.

Just making shit up without any evidence, and claiming that there is a group of people secretly plotting together to keep this invented fable of collective misbehavior a secret, is not reasonable. We like to deal with facts when discussion the world around us.

Also, it's a conspiracy theory.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:13 AM on May 2, 2011

Not at all. I came here with no specific theories at all, simply a lack of belief in the story we were being presented, and a healthy skepticism due to the lack of hard evidence and the long delay since we last heard from Bin Laden.

yet:

I assumed Bin Laden was dead many years ago. If he were alive, why did he stop his mocking messages so long ago? Why did he not gloat at least when Bush left office? It's not like those gloating messages hadn't been of big value to propaganda!

seems pretty specific. not to mention that i'm curious as to the level of hard evidence that led you to your apparently incorrect assumption, given your high standards for evidence now.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:13 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I honestly believe this would be an impossible sell with the current lot of cowards in Congress who were terrified of trying Guantanamo detainees

Why would you need to sell it to congress? You don't need congressional approval to put on a trial.

They've done it before.

I mean, isn't the Iraq war an example of such a conspiracy, where the government presented deliberately falsified information to the nation and started yet another destructive war?

Those are two examples of the U.S. government lying about the actions of others. I can't think of an example of the U.S. government saying it did something when in, in fact, it didn't. During the Iraq war there was a lot of contrary evidence as well. Barbra Boxer, for example was on the Intel committee and said she didn't believe it. There were weapons inspectors running around, and not finding anything for a couple months.

Plus, it's not just the U.S government, but also other Al Quaeda guys. People have asked you and you haven't responded. Is AFP in on the conspiracy?

Delmoi, the US government wasn't able to keep the fact that it was torturing people secret, but it successfully implied that the people alleging torture were kooks who had an axe to grind. This went on for years.

What?
posted by delmoi at 11:13 AM on May 2, 2011

lupus_yonderboy --

No one is really equating being doubtful of the U.S. government with being insane. What they are saying is that the particular thing you have chosen to express doubt about seems ... rather silly, really.

For example, if you had said, "Huh, they say he hid behind his young wife? Maybe. Or maybe they just want him to look bad. I wonder if there's any evidence." I doubt you'd have gotten much mockery.

If you had said, "Huh, they say he wouldn't surrender and fired a gun? Maybe. Or maybe they just wanted to make the U.S. look good. I wonder if there's any evidence." I doubt you'd have gotten much mockery.

But doubting that he was actually killed in the recent raid ... the exposure of such a lie would be so easy, the cost so high, the point of doing it so obscure, that ... yeah, it seems silly.
posted by kyrademon at 11:14 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Actually, I think this is probably the polite thing to do.

To jump into the back of an SUV and roar off into the street?
posted by toastedbeagle at 11:15 AM on May 2, 2011

Amusingly enough, it appears that the President of Peru is claiming OBL's death is a miracle performed by soon-to-be-Saint John Paul II.

And so it begins.
posted by aramaic at 11:15 AM on May 2, 2011

Make fun of Donald Trump at WH correspondent's dinner-->lulz-->Arrive home-->Call Sam Fisher and tell him to go ahead and shoot Osama...

Obama gave the order Friday morning, and the WHCD was Saturday night. Still, it's hard not to imagine what he had in mind when he mocked Trump's ability to handle the awesome responsibility of firing Gary Busey.
posted by EarBucket at 11:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Time to turn off the Osama Clock.
posted by homunculus at 11:15 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

> That's perfectly reasonable?

Yes, these are perfectly reasonable scenarios. Not particularly probable, but certainly possible, and there are dozens of others and that is all I need to rebut some person such as yourself who says no other scenario is even possible.

This is how skeptical thinking works, and it's ensconced in US law as the idea of reasonable doubt, and there are similar concepts in the study of science, for example - it's why scientists go to so much effort to craft experiments that only admit of one explanation, for example, and why rebuttals of their experiments often point out alternative mechanisms that would have achieved the same effect (the history of the Einstein/Bell/Rosen/Polonsky experiments is this story over and over again, for example).

I am NOT making such claims as truth. I am and have not been making any claims at all except that at the start of this thread we had precious little evidence for such extraordinary news and that I had every reason to doubt this news at the time (remember "reasonable doubt")?

As the various info bites come in, it seems less reasonable to doubt, but some guy's tweets aren't really something I'll take to the bank, so I will still defer judgement until we get some more hard evidence, please.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:16 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This morning on NPR they said that the courier that lead them to the compound was first identified by US intelligence agents 4 years ago, which suggests that they were looking for that link even before then. Perhaps I am mis-using "operation"?

The key intelligence (identifying the alias of OBL's most trusted courier) came from Guantanamo detainees captured under GWB. GWB was also first to give the US military authority to conduct secret operations inside Pakistan without obtaining prior approval from the Pakistanis. The critical tactical intelligence was obtained under Obama's leadership, and the operation was obviously ordered by Obama.

I say kudos to both men.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:17 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

If you thought the SEALs were hard to put up with before, they're going to be insufferable now.

When Hollywood made a movie about Delta Force, they called Chuck Norris. When they made a movie about Navy Seals, they called Charlie Sheen.

That just about says it all.
posted by chemoboy at 11:18 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

> I can't think of an example of the U.S. government saying it did something when in, in fact, it didn't.

I did post the Gulf of Tonkin example specifically for that reason. The US government's own spooks, the NSA, reported: "[I]t is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night."
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is there anyone but skeptics/conspiracy theorists saying Osama was not killed in a raid in Abottabad last night?
posted by garlic at 11:19 AM on May 2, 2011

This is how skeptical thinking works, and it's ensconced in US law as the idea of reasonable doubt,

Skeptical thinking works by presenting alternate facts, or alternate hypotheses that are supported by the facts. Not by dreaming up something that is improbable and hasn't got the same preponderance of factual support.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you need to back it up, rather than just put it out there and rely on mistrust of the government as your crutch. I may distrust the official story, but that doesn't mean I am going to trust fabricated alternatives.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:19 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

lupus_yonderboy: news stories from the Oklahoma City bombings

I hope I'm misinterpreting this, but are you saying that you initially believed that the Clinton Administration lied or even perpetrated the OK City bombing? That is pretty out there...

implies a religious faith in the honesty of the government that I am very glad that I do not share.

Eh, but belief in this has no direct cost. Unlike the Gulf of Tonkin incident or the build-up to the Iraq War, it's not tied to any future policy decision. This is starting to read more like an epilogue, actually. Though that shouldn't deter the truth from being found out, it would make any claim of disbelief seem more like reflexive skepticism rather than reasonable.

And it doesn't help your case that you've been checking in about every 30 minutes into this topic starting at 8:20 am till now and saying the same thing over and over again. If you start engaging in the believers, they will only try to redouble their efforts to extinguish your doubt.
posted by FJT at 11:20 AM on May 2, 2011

There are obvious reasons why the White House has not yet released images of the bloody corpse. It is equally obvious that the White House would be completely insane to claim that bin Laden is dead when he isn't, or that he died this weekend when he in fact died long ago. Anyone producing proof otherwise would be able to destroy Obama's administration. So it's not sensible to say there is significant doubt on the basics of this story.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:20 AM on May 2, 2011

reasonable doubt

Bwahahahah!
posted by unSane at 11:20 AM on May 2, 2011

It's hard for me to congratulate Bush considering how much of our momentum in Afghanistan was lost due to what amounted to a personal grudge for Iraq.

Without that diversion of resources, its very possible (as the Tora Bora incident illustrates) that we would have gotten him before.

But yes, Bush can take some credit for this. It would be hard for him to have not contributed in some ways to this during his term in office.
posted by rosswald at 11:21 AM on May 2, 2011

He was president when the operation that culminated last night began.

He also disbanded the CIA team that had been tracking bin Laden for 10 years.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:21 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

> I hope I'm misinterpreting this, but are you saying that you initially believed that the Clinton Administration lied or even perpetrated the OK City bombing? That is pretty out there...

Perhaps you don't recall that the OK City bombings were initially attributed to radical Muslims...?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:22 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

We know why Bush fled on getting the news. In moments of great crisis, Bush reaches for a book that has always been there to comfort him.

The Pet Goat.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:23 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

He rushed out, leaving Laura's behind? Coitus interruptus.
posted by tizzie at 11:23 AM on May 2, 2011

"Yes, these are perfectly reasonable scenarios. Not particularly probable, but certainly possible"

The "possible" here being that either the whole thing is fake, or we botched the most important DNA test ever.

Congratulations. You are now a goofy conspiracy theorist.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

When they made a movie about Navy Seals, they called Charlie Sheen.

Let's be fair: they called Michael Biehn first.
posted by lodurr at 11:24 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

We're still awaiting a way to integrate the AQ guy from the AFP article into any sort of theory in which OBL was not killed in a raid this past weekend.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:25 AM on May 2, 2011

Unsane writes:

> By the way Lupus_Yonderboy, we're not waiting with bated breath for your ex-cathedra announcement on the veracity of the claims. We're (or at least I am) pointing fingers and laughing at you. You know Donald Trump and the Birth Certificate. That's you, right now.

Why are you so angry? Perhaps you should think about that a little, eh?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:26 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I sort of think he's trying to pull you back from the ledge.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Major press conference on tv now (I'm watching CNN) addressing burial at sea decision and how it was carried out, among other issues.
posted by misha at 11:27 AM on May 2, 2011

Re-posting the link posted above to the press conference on whitehouse.gov.
posted by chemoboy at 11:29 AM on May 2, 2011

Why are you so angry? Perhaps you should think about that a little, eh?

I am moved to similarly invite you to "think about it a little" about your own mistrust of the government.

The reasons you gave above were that you were about 48, and that you "have seen [your] government lie to you for years". Well, sir, I'm 41, I've seen just as much as you have, but yet this isn't pinging anything with me. Healthy skepticism is one thing, but taking skepticism too far is a bit...difficult.

So -- perhaps you should think about the depth of your own skepticism a little, eh?

After you explain how you integrate the AQ guy from the AFP article into any theory in which OBL was not killed in a raid this past weekend.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:30 AM on May 2, 2011

Hey, quit picking on lupus_yonderboy. Sometimes logic and facts must be ignored to get to the truth.
posted by found missing at 11:30 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

> Congratulations. You are now a goofy conspiracy theorist.

Again, I'd have to say that equating reasonable doubt with madness shows a lot more about you than about me - and I'd particularly say that your emotional reaction speaks volumes more about you than about me...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

She's rather; sorry EmpressCallipygos.

STUPID GENDER WORDS.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2011

Even though he said OBL wasn't a priority in 2002, I'm sure the people operating underneath him didn't feel that way. Either way, he's also responsible for killing OBL.

You're fulla shit.
posted by interrobang at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm not angry, I'm amazed.
posted by unSane at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2011

Logic and facts in this case seem to have a pro-government bias. Think about it!
posted by found missing at 11:31 AM on May 2, 2011

He also disbanded the CIA team that had been tracking bin Laden for 10 years.

Since OBL voluntarily isolated himself and was obviously not directing Al Qaeda operations after his escape from Afghanistan, keeping 30 CIA guys busy hunting him personally probably wasn't the best use of their time. Better to have them focus on Al Qaeda writ large, and keep an eye out for OBL, rather than make one big fish their singular focus. I won't second guess that decision, especially with ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:32 AM on May 2, 2011

reasonable doubt

You keep saying that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
posted by unSane at 11:33 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

"She's" rather; sorry EmpressCallipygos.

...Sorry for what? I just assumed you meant that unSane was the one trying to pull Lupus "back from the ledge," because unSane was the guy Lupus asked "why so angry?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:33 AM on May 2, 2011

I'd have to say that equating reasonable doubt

I think you and others just have a different idea of what is "reasonable doubt."

Yours is sort of like this.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:34 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope the helmet-cam videos are released. It would do a lot to put a lid on uninformed conjecture about how it went down.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:34 AM on May 2, 2011

l_y: i think some of the confusion is that you seem to be conflating the ideas of 'deferring judgement' and 'disbelief'...both of which you claim to be doing, but which are not the same thing. deferring judgment would be waiting for evidence before making a decision; it doesn't really apply when you invoke previous US deception and earlier bin laden death rumors as reasons to doubt the story before that evidence is in.

plus, it doesn't make sense, as it locks you in. somebody tells you your girlfriend is fooling around, well yeah, you can go off on how you just knew she was a slut all along; but then when it turns out to be untrue, you can't really come back from that.

i'm no stranger to digging myself in, so i'll lay off now.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:34 AM on May 2, 2011

Why are you so angry? Perhaps you should think about that a little, eh?

Ppphhhht. He just can't deal with a Winner. You should challenge him to a boxing match or something.
posted by bonehead at 11:34 AM on May 2, 2011

Sorry for what?

I just like to apologize.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:35 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would imagine that since the team itself is so top-secret, there would just be too much operational info for any video to be released.

We will be lucky to get a single screen-capture
posted by rosswald at 11:35 AM on May 2, 2011

The real crime was going to war in Iraq in the first place. You bet Bush thought there would be WMD ~~and~~ or that he'd be greeted as a liberator.

ftfy. . .
posted by mokuba at 11:36 AM on May 2, 2011

"Yes, these are perfectly reasonable scenarios. Not particularly probable, but certainly possible"

I disagree. The scenario that it's all possibly not true because of a botched DNA test or someone has deliberately misreported because they had an axe to grind assumes a startling level of incompetence all round. Now I'm used to incompetence. I am. Find it difficult to believe that Obama and others involved are quite that incompetent but you feel otherwise it seems.

How about this. Osama's look alike was killed but they injected blood packs and coated him with skin sample in strategic places where it was likely that what could possibly be incompetent DNA technicians would get their samples from so they covered that angle. Not particular probably but certainly possible, but not reasonable, which is not the same thing.

I confess I can't think of what sort of axe to grind scenario would be so strong and well orchestrated (but not a conspiracy of course) that it has fooled Obama and everyone else involved in the reporting, save the ax grinder.
posted by juiceCake at 11:36 AM on May 2, 2011

Ugh, why do I always watch the comment boards next to livestream videos?

There's a person using this as a megaphone to demand the government audit the federal reserve as well as shut down the EPA, Department of Education, Department of Transportation, and Department of Energy.

Way to contribute. That's very relevant to counterterrorism.

Also, someone just mentioned that she knows this is a conspiracy theory because she is clear-headed, and says she wishes other Americans would stop drinking fluoridated water so they could think skeptically again. Poe is strong with that comment.
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:36 AM on May 2, 2011

Can you knock off the verbal abuse of lupus_yonderboy? Disagree with his scepticism in good faith and cite facts. This shit-flinging is contemptible, you're like a bunch of twelve-year olds going after the kid who tried to argue with the teacher.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:37 AM on May 2, 2011 [19 favorites]

You're fulla shit.

Thank you, Interrobang, for your wise and insightful comment. You're a class act all the way! A real tribute to the community.
posted by cell divide at 11:39 AM on May 2, 2011

I hope the helmet-cam videos are released. It would do a lot to put a lid on uninformed conjecture about how it went down.

Is their precedent for this? I have seen videos of these helmet cameras during training exercises, but never during live exercises. Something tells me they might consider this to be classified information.
posted by chemoboy at 11:39 AM on May 2, 2011

My real question is: What's next?

Osama had 10 years to plan for this moment... I am scared to think of what has been placed in motion.
posted by rosswald at 11:40 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

As the various info bites come in, it seems less reasonable to doubt, but some guy's tweets aren't really something I'll take to the bank, so I will still defer judgement until we get some more hard evidence, please.

What about the AFP article about an AQ guy confirming the kill? You still haven't said anything about it.
posted by delmoi at 11:40 AM on May 2, 2011

What more proof does anyone need than this?
posted by mazola at 11:41 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

you're like a bunch of twelve-year olds going after the kid who tried to argue with the teacher.

When I was in 7th Grade, and a kid got up to argue with the teacher about "why George Washington couldn't have just gotten a machine gun and killed all the British", and absolutely refused to back down when the teacher said "because machine guns weren't invented yet," I have to confess I often got mad enough to want to go after him for wasting all our time by being deliberately obtuse.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:41 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

New image of the OBL compound that is being used in the current press conference.
posted by lampshade at 11:42 AM on May 2, 2011

From the press conference - The president will make some more remarks tonight about this.
posted by cashman at 11:42 AM on May 2, 2011

It would do a lot to put a lid on uninformed conjecture about how it went down.

given most of the uninformed conjecture is happening here, i doubt the government will perceive any such need.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 11:43 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

deliberately obtuse

Ah thank you. I think this is the most apt description of how this is going...
posted by rosswald at 11:43 AM on May 2, 2011

and contaminating an interesting, even historical, thread with timecube-level bullshit
posted by unSane at 11:44 AM on May 2, 2011

Video of the Osama Bin Laden hideout

ABC video inside Osama Bin Laden enclave

Osama Bin Laden left hugely disappointed by quality of virgins

http://twitter.com/#!/REUTERSFLASH :"DNA test on bin Laden showed "virtually 100 pct" match against relatives - U.S. intelligence official"

"White House says has not determined yet whether it will release photos of Osama bin Laden's body"

"White House says bin Laden was engaged in firefight during operation, hid behind women"

nytjim Jim Roberts @BreakingNews: Two of bin Laden's wives, 4 of his kids captured during operation - Al Arabiya via NBC News
posted by nickyskye at 11:45 AM on May 2, 2011

White House: Osama bin Laden Used Wife As Human Shield

Brennan says bin Laden was engaged in the firefight, but it was unclear if he got any shots off. He identified bin Laden as the combatant who used a woman as a human shield. She was the only woman killed in the operation. Brennan later said the woman appears to have been one of bin Laden's wives.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:46 AM on May 2, 2011

Additional, from the press conference (still going on), the president will talk about how this is an American success - the people that carried this out are not democrats or republicans, they are Americans. That the culmination of this 9 year mission is a success for not democrats or republicans, but an American success. - at least that's the tone Jay Carney (White House Press Secretary) expects President Obama's remarks to take tonight.
posted by cashman at 11:46 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Classy.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:48 AM on May 2, 2011

'Reasonable doubt' means that there could be no "reasonable doubt" in the mind of a "reasonable person" that the proposition is true (eg the defendant is guilty, Bin Laden was killed in the raid as described). It does not mean that there is no doubt, or that any alternative theory, however far fetched, provides reasonable doubt.
posted by unSane at 11:48 AM on May 2, 2011

Is their precedent for this? I have seen videos of these helmet cameras during training exercises, but never during live exercises.

Jessica Lynch rescue
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:48 AM on May 2, 2011

Well, EmpressCallipygos, there's an easy way to stop lupus_yonderboy or anyone else from wasting one's time (easier than going after him or anyone else); don't respond.

Lupus_yonderboy is unconvinced; most of the rest of us are. Shrug. Move on.

What's interesting to me is that many of the convinced seem compelled to drag L_Y into the club. Why's that?
posted by notyou at 11:49 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Is there any way to read that besides the SEALs having rules of engagement which included neutralizing any Pakistani forces they came in contact with?

Well, that has to be part of the decision tree on any RoG in country (and there was probably a robust SAR/backup force on alert at a base as close as practicable). But I would assume that given the past history of US operations within Pakistan that they have a friend-or-foe protocol with the military.

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?

My personal reading of this is that he was requested to speak with the sitting President on a secure line back at his ranch, for a courtesy heads-up.

No. He was not. This operation began last year.

Putting pieces together, I'm wondering whether the Camp Chapman bombing that killed several members of the CIA ObL expert team had any effect in terms of a change of tempo or strategy as new people took over those roles. (In addition to Panetta's particular focus.)

the courier that lead them to the compound was first identified by US intelligence agents 4 years ago, which suggests that they were looking for that link even before then.

There's been chatter about the courier being a weak link for literally years. Basically, we know that he gave up satphones after 2002-2003, and began to rely exclusively on human logistics for his messages to followers and the video/audio releases. If there's a way out, there's a way to walk back the cat.

I am scared to think of what has been placed in motion.

As stated up thread (I know it's huuuge) Al Qaeda is an organization with very limited resources and holding them in some kind of sleeper mode is unrealistic. If they have assets to use, they use them. I expect activity but on a smaller, ad hoc scale.

Al Qaeda as an organization has known no other leader than Osama bin Laden. It may not ever reconstitute as anything more than a symbolic cooperatively. On the other hand, it has an advantage in that it's had to operate for a long time in a very disconnected, organic, and independent fashion, so the local AQ "affiliates" will probably continue at more or less current levels of expertise and funding.

But I feel the chances of a dramatic attack on the West on a 9/11 scale have dramatically decreased, not that they were high as things were.
posted by dhartung at 11:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

C'mon, the trolls won't feed themselves.
posted by unSane at 11:50 AM on May 2, 2011

Can you imagine the faces of Hannity, Limbaugh, Palin, Ailes, et al. when they got this news?

Rush Limbaugh: 'Thank God For President Obama'.
posted by ericb at 11:50 AM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

> Hey, quit picking on lupus_yonderboy. Sometimes logic and facts must be ignored to get to the truth.

[etc]

I'm running out of steam on this one and need to engage the real world and thus must go.

Some of you should really consider what it means that you're so very angry about the idea that you should wait to get all the facts before coming to an opinion, why it is so offensive to you that I prefer to wait for more evidence - evidence which might already have come in for all I know, perhaps there's already video of Bin Laden getting shot already up on YouTube, rendering my doubt moot.

Why is it such a big deal to you that I might believe in the veracity of this story, if turns out to be true, some hours later than you do, that you are willing to be so very rude to me?

Think about it!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:51 AM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Osama bin Laden Used Wife As Human Shield

Cold.

Shit, that's some serious entitlement.

That's actually the first thing that's really gotten to me in this whole thing. Fucking wow.
posted by lodurr at 11:52 AM on May 2, 2011

I for one, was never angry, only amused and bemused. Still disappointed that you were never able to integrate the AFP's guy from AQ into any sort of story other than the one in which OBL was killed in a raid this past weekend.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:52 AM on May 2, 2011

First!
posted by ooga_booga at 11:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Santorum’s Response To Bin Laden’s Death Is To Accuse Obama Of Not Defending American Freedom.
posted by ericb at 11:53 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ya, through all of this I am impressed with how classy this whole thing has been (for the shooting of a person).

They offered him the opportunity to surrender, tried to repatriate his body, and properly buried him.

And the administration's tone has been elated yet still reserved. And the re-iterating that "he wasn't a Muslim leader" was also a nice touch.

Go Obama!
posted by rosswald at 11:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

If there's anything I know about being the devil's advocate, it's that repeating the same non-statement over-and-over and how it's done.
posted by Dark Messiah at 11:54 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Meet The Deathers: Andrew Brietbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead.
posted by ericb at 11:54 AM on May 2, 2011

Rush Limbaugh: 'Thank God For President Obama'.

Oh damn it I'm in the mirror universe again.
posted by The Whelk at 11:55 AM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

Seriously, please give this conversation a rest. It's not like anyone's changing anyone else's mind at this point, and it's really just an albatross around this thread's neck when there's actual, new information being released.
posted by codacorolla at 11:55 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

And shit, I was kidding, but just before I posted this I googled Pakistani pizza and came up with PizzaHut's Pakistani website.

I looked at the site and it looked so good I stopped at the supermarket on my way home for lunch and grabbed a jar of tikka masala sauce to spread on my (otherwise dull) turkey sandwich. Yum!
posted by aught at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why is it such a big deal to you that I might believe in the veracity of this story, if turns out to be true, some hours later than you do, that you are willing to be so very rude to me?

I just want to know what you think of the AFP article.
posted by delmoi at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2011

I love that after 45 minutes of discussion on the events during the press conference, someone asks if Obama has named a new Commerce Secretary yet. COME ON, that's the news we really want!
posted by yeti at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2011

From the deather link: "The entire body should be digitally scanned, inside and out..."

What? I mean...what? Does Breitbart think he can identify OBL from the shape of his pancreas?
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

White House: Osama bin Laden Used Wife As Human Shield

All I heard Brennan say is that bin Laden was shielded by one of his wives. He couldn't clarify if bin Laden, someone else or the wife herself was responsible for the shielding.

Jessica Lynch rescue

Ah, I had forgot about that.
posted by chemoboy at 11:56 AM on May 2, 2011

Well, EmpressCallipygos, there's an easy way to stop lupus_yonderboy or anyone else from wasting one's time (easier than going after him or anyone else); don't respond.

....Well, setting aside the inane implication that our responses are examples of us "being angry", all I can say is, you should never underestimate the seductive appeal of Someone Being Wrong On The Internet.

But your point is good.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:57 AM on May 2, 2011

Ironmouth: Actually, no. Dude sent out a video saying he did it. There are no due process issues in this case.

I keep seeing this line being used, but when someone records their own video confession, is there not usually a trial to follow? Something to determine the authenticity of the confession?

I'm unsure of why people don't think it's possible that taking credit for the attacks on 9/11 simply served Bin Laden's goals. In the days following the attacks, OBL denied it was him who carried them out.

I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons. I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders' rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations.

He then continued to deny his involvement late into September.

I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle.

I think it's completely plausible that after a while he just came to the conclusion that taking credit for 9/11 would elevate him to the status he desired and provoke the response he wished for.
posted by gman at 11:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Rush Limbaugh: 'Thank God For President Obama'.

Worth listening to. Limbaugh was shockingly classy today.
posted by EarBucket at 11:57 AM on May 2, 2011

internet, you never let me down: Hitler reacts to the news that Osama bin Laden was killed
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:57 AM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Quit distracting yourselves with a single longterm user's off-kilter idea. Good gods. It's not that important.

Perhaps a video composed from the lead-camera shots. Remove all shots of the team, but let us see how they dealt with civilians, armed threats, how the woman got in the line of fire, and how Osama chose death.

If this was as slick and clean as they say, it's essentially PG -rated Hollywood trope. It should be public: surely it is 95% non-top secret.

It would be a powerful message about how there's no hiding from a top tactical team, and how sudden retribution can occur swiftly, precisely, and fairly.

The top leaders of any suicidal force are necessarily also not suicidal themselves. An organization that kills it's organisers and leaders is not one that's around for long.

Let's have Ghadaffi taken out by a squad next. A not-US squad, come to think of it. Put some fear into the Bad Guys. The US and UN are on the hunt.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:58 AM on May 2, 2011

Meet The Deathers: Andrew Brietbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead.

Add to that group Cindy Sheehan.
posted by lampshade at 11:58 AM on May 2, 2011

> Still disappointed that you were never able to integrate the AFP's guy from AQ into any sort of story other than the one in which OBL was killed in a raid this past weekend.

URG, on posting: I haven't even seen that story! As I said, I expect the most likely case is that we'll soon have proof so what's your beef?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:58 AM on May 2, 2011

White House says bin Laden was engaged in firefight during operation, hid behind women [...] White House: Osama bin Laden Used Wife As Human Shield
[...]
Shit, that's some serious entitlement.

The press needs to do a better job because the way there are reporting this naturally leads to the response I've included in my quoting. Perhaps that's deliberate. But Brennan was very precise in what he said, and it does not support the "hid behind women" or "use wife as human shield" bullshit.

It was obvious from what was said that his wife deliberately placed herself between bin Laden and our forces in an attempt to protect him, just as any of you married people might do for your own spouses. What happened is important enough we should not distort it.
posted by Justinian at 11:58 AM on May 2, 2011

Transparency? The evidence of Obama's birth in Hawaii has been thoroughly ignored. Transparency won't stop idiots from believing what reinforces their preferred beliefs. Obama is pretty smart, and has a pretty smart team. Likely they got good evidence of bin Laden's death.
posted by theora55 at 11:59 AM on May 2, 2011

"The surreal gathering to celebrate Osama bin Laden's death that spontaneously coalesced outside the White House was jubilant and fiercely American, but other than that, it did not know what it was."
posted by mrgrimm at 12:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

EmpressCallipygos: ""She's" rather; sorry EmpressCallipygos.

...Sorry for what? I just assumed you meant that unSane was the one trying to pull Lupus "back from the ledge," because unSane was the guy Lupus asked "why so angry?""

We could be apologizing that the default assumption is that a person is male until otherwise specified (though, if he knew beforehand that unsane is a dude, then no need to apologize)... I don't unsane's gender, however... So I think it's fair to apologize just in case. Or something?
posted by symbioid at 12:01 PM on May 2, 2011

URG, on posting: I haven't even seen that story!

Here is a link to where Stitcherbeast posted a link to that very story for your reference. It's a fast moving thread. Perhaps you missed it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:02 PM on May 2, 2011

If you thought the SEALs were hard to put up with before, they're going to be insufferable now.

I did on-site tech support for a Navy SEAL for a while. Super nice and not at all insufferable. Wonder how he's doing these days?
posted by infinitewindow at 12:02 PM on May 2, 2011

Rush Limbaugh: 'Thank God For President Obama'.

That was worth waiting ten years for.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I got that, symbioid; the confusing part wasn't that, it was that Astro Zombie was coming to my defense for something that hadn't even happened to me in the first place. It's all good.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:04 PM on May 2, 2011

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?

Reading between the lines in the article, he rushed home to release a statement (call his PR firm, whatever). Laura stayed behind to be polite.
posted by TungstenChef at 12:04 PM on May 2, 2011

It was obvious from what was said that his wife deliberately placed herself between bin Laden and our forces in an attempt to protect him, just as any of you married people might do for your own spouses. What happened is important enough we should not distort it.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I thought what was said was that bin Laden's wife was used as a human shield, but it was not clear who put bin Laden's wife in the line of fire. It was certainly possible she did it how you said, but I don't think that was definite either.
posted by chemoboy at 12:05 PM on May 2, 2011

Meet The Deathers: Andrew Brietbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead.

That's a pretty uncharitable reading of the blog posting by Waller and twitter comment from Miller. Once you read the entire post, and Miller's twitter feed, you will see that neither are really suggesting anything conspiratorial. Waller doesn't want to miss an opportunity to use OBL's body for propaganda purposes (and also says "I’m going to raise a mug of beer and munch a Hebrew National pork sausage to celebrate the brave CIA men who took bin Laden down.")

Miller just wants to satisfy her morbid curiosity: "I've never been so excited to see the photo of a corpse with a gunshot wound through the head."

This is much ado about nothing.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:05 PM on May 2, 2011

Another funny thing about this was the whole "and the stock market is up with the news of OBL's death."

I mean, I get it, its a big deal, but its funny to think that the killing of one man somehow made us all wealthier. OBL's death helped my 401k!
posted by rosswald at 12:06 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you thought the SEALs were hard to put up with before, they're going to be insufferable now.

I did on-site tech support for a Navy SEAL for a while. Super nice and not at all insufferable. Wonder how he's doing these days?

When I worked on a sea urchin dive boat way back when, there was a boat in the fleet captained and crewed by a trio of ex-SEALs. They weren't insufferable because they were former SEALs.

They were insufferable because they caught more urchins than the rest of us did and they got them to market faster than we did, too.
posted by notyou at 12:07 PM on May 2, 2011

I haven't even seen that story!

Maybe go looking for some of the evidence you're seeking, instead of just talking about talking in here? There is information - detailed information, all over the place right now.
posted by cashman at 12:07 PM on May 2, 2011

URG, on posting: I haven't even seen that story! As I said, I expect the most likely case is that we'll soon have proof so what's your beef?

That's weird, because you had responded to it earlier:

> Other than the video from the house and the guy who twittered it, and Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula confirming it and calling it a "catastrophe."

Each of these has come in recently, since we started this thread. Each of these is a piece of evidence that has some value in convincing me or any skeptical person of the truth of the story.

Maybe you missed the fact that there was a link connected to the story about AQ confirming the kill.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:07 PM on May 2, 2011

Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I thought what was said was that bin Laden's wife was used as a human shield

It could also have been me who wasn't paying close enough attention, but I thought Brennan was very careful to contradict questions which implied she was a "human shield" in this sense without coming right out and contradicting it. There's no chance whatsoever he is going to say "she threw herself in front of bin Laden to protect him from our bullets", but that was the implication. It seemed to me.
posted by Justinian at 12:07 PM on May 2, 2011

EmpressCallipygos: "Here is a link to where Stitcherbeast posted a link to that very story for your reference. It's a fast moving thread. Perhaps you missed it."

It is entirely reasonable that Lupus Yonderboy missed the 13 in-thread references to it, most of which were directly asking him to comment. It is an entirely plausible scenario, and I defy you to show me evidence to the contrary.
posted by danny the boy at 12:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

"I’m going to raise a mug of beer and munch a Hebrew National pork sausage to celebrate the brave CIA men who took bin Laden down." (emphasis added)

Wait, what? All of Hebrew National's products are kosher.
posted by jedicus at 12:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I got that, symbioid; the confusing part wasn't that, it was that Astro Zombie was coming to my defense for something that hadn't even happened to me in the first place

I got confused about who said what to who and when.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:10 PM on May 2, 2011

Think about it!

We have. Not angry. Not pleased with being cast as angry for taking you to task for disagreeing with what is reasonable and what is skepticism and what makes an "adult" skeptic, which clearly we do not qualify as in your mind. You're free to cast as being angry and not really skeptical like an adult. That we are not free to cast you as being unreasonable and not truly skeptical is of course, no surprise. I'm good with it. It's not unexpected.

You cite reason and evidence and yet believe Osama was already dead because you haven't seen a video since 1996. We have different views of what is reasonable and what being skeptical is. I believe yours are absolutely preposterous. This does not equate to anger however. Bafflement perhaps.

It's wonderful that others are running to your defense of apparently being abused even though we've engaged in good faith discussion which has not been reciprocated. If only they'd show the same sort of compassion for those of us who have been falsely cast as angry and possibly not particularly reasonable.
posted by juiceCake at 12:11 PM on May 2, 2011

Again, I'd have to say that equating reasonable doubt with madness...

Let's go with than term "reason". What are the reasons the government has lied in the past? I'd say the come in three flavors: 1) Cover your ass. 2) Get the electorate to support something that, once it's over and done, can't be undone (like an invasion). 3) General SNAFUs.

Type one and two really don't fit here because it's not like anyone, well, anyone sane, is blaming Obama for the September 11th attacks and it's not like this is going to change any particular US policy (except maybe the policy of "Hey, some dude hanging out in country X is a bad guy - let's go blow the shit out of country X and maybe a couple of its neighbors!")

For three to be the case, there would have to be an incredible parade of wrong going down Fail street with no one up the chain of command with enough smarts to say, "Well, it wasn't Osama, but we got al Qaeda's #3 man...again" rather than admit they blew up a goat herder or something.

It's possible that it wasn't really him, but without a reasonable motive, it's hard to take the suggestion of a deliberate conspiracy very seriously.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:12 PM on May 2, 2011

but its funny to think that the killing of one man somehow made us all wealthier.

terrorists can in fact destroy wealth . . . it's their MO, actually.
posted by mokuba at 12:14 PM on May 2, 2011

its funny to think that the killing of one man somehow made us all wealthier

define "us."
posted by mrgrimm at 12:15 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm sort of richer because of it, in web currency. Hodgman retweeted one of my comments and now I have, like 50 new Twitter followers.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:16 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

What I really want to know is: did Michelle Obama know? Because if not, Barack is in for a whole world of hurt when he gets home tonight.
posted by 8dot3 at 12:18 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

rosswald: "Another funny thing about this was the whole "and the stock market is up with the news of OBL's death."

I mean, I get it, its a big deal, but its funny to think that the killing of one man somehow made us all wealthier. OBL's death helped my 401k!"

Don't argue with the market. It is always rational. You can't win.
posted by symbioid at 12:18 PM on May 2, 2011

ericb: Santorum’s Response To Bin Laden’s Death Is To Accuse Obama Of Not Defending American Freedom.

Is Rick Santorum the Chatterer from Hellraiser?!?!!!!
posted by Hairy Lobster at 12:19 PM on May 2, 2011

CNN/Parenting.com - Telling kids about Bin Laden
posted by cashman at 12:20 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm just worried about the inevitable pay-back. Some civies are going to die so AQ can reassert itself. But a monster is dead, so that is some good news.
posted by angrycat at 12:20 PM on May 2, 2011

"It would be a powerful message about how there's no hiding from a top tactical team, and how sudden retribution can occur swiftly, precisely, and fairly"

hahahaha swiftly? 9 years is swiftly?

Obama: "world safer place" - yeah, as long as you kiss america's ass you'll be fine. Even if you are a fascist torturing lunatic.

so starting a book: who's going to be elevated to be Public Enemy No 1 now? Chavez? Amahdinajad?
posted by marienbad at 12:20 PM on May 2, 2011

Long thread is, well, you know.

Have y'all yet discussed the people involved in the operation? I imagine it's really hard to be the dude who shot bin Laden and not be like HEY EVERYBODY I'M THE DUDE WHO SHOT HIM YEAH IT WAS ME I DID IT. Is there like a secret medal they give you? Or is it better to throw you out there and you get to go on Letterman and have sex with anyone you want for a few years? I mean, nobody shot Hitler. But some dude shot bin Laden. And boy you can but the dude who shot bin Laden wants people to know he was the dude who shot bin Laden.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2011

What ever happened to "pics or it didn't happen."
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I mean, I get it, its a big deal, but its funny to think that the killing of one man somehow made us all wealthier. OBL's death helped my 401k!

Der Besuch der alten Dame
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:21 PM on May 2, 2011

Not saying it didn't happen just throwing that out there.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:22 PM on May 2, 2011

Has anybody talked about what else they might have found at the compound? I mean it's great that they got bin laden, but what about documents? Computers? His rolodex?
posted by empath at 12:23 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I imagine it's really hard to be the dude who shot bin Laden and not be like HEY EVERYBODY I'M THE DUDE WHO SHOT HIM YEAH IT WAS ME I DID IT.

If that Korean animation was right, every single SEAL shot him. Emptied their machine gun into him. Then threw away the machine guns and pulled out shotguns and shot him. Then threw those away and then show him with some sort of a ray gun.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:23 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

What ever happened to "pics or it didn't happen."

It got left on 4chan?
posted by octobersurprise at 12:25 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Has anybody talked about what else they might have found at the compound? I mean it's great that they got bin laden, but what about documents? Computers?

Yes, they grabbed two computers and other "materials," from what I heard.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:25 PM on May 2, 2011

Taiwanese NMA take on the killing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiDyrkU0WAQ
posted by marienbad at 12:25 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Obama: "world safer place" - yeah, as long as you kiss america's ass you'll be fine. Even if you are a fascist torturing lunatic.

...You're weird, dude.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I mean it's great that they got bin laden, but what about documents? Computers? His rolodex?

Fox sez: "Along with bin Laden's body, electronics and hard drives were seized by U.S. forces following the firefight Sunday afternoon.

They have started to arrive at the CIA's Virginia headquarters, officials said. They described the cache as a "volume of materials" that will be "exploited and analyzed" at CIA headquarters."
posted by cashman at 12:27 PM on May 2, 2011

Have y'all yet discussed the people involved in the operation? I imagine it's really hard to be the dude who shot bin Laden and not be like HEY EVERYBODY I'M THE DUDE WHO SHOT HIM YEAH IT WAS ME I DID IT. Is there like a secret medal they give you? Or is it better to throw you out there and you get to go on Letterman and have sex with anyone you want for a few years? I mean, nobody shot Hitler. But some dude shot bin Laden. And boy you can but the dude who shot bin Laden wants people to know he was the dude who shot bin Laden.

This will become the US equivalent of being "the 2nd man on the balcony"
posted by longbaugh at 12:27 PM on May 2, 2011

If that Korean animation was right, every single SEAL shot him.

It's Taiwanese
posted by delmoi at 12:28 PM on May 2, 2011

If that Korean animation was right

I think it was Taiwanese. Did you also notice that Osama bin Laden's floor was littered with liquor bottles and he appeared to be sleeping in the same bed as one of his generals? Trump's hair flying off as Obama kicks his ass off the stage was a nice touch too.
posted by chemoboy at 12:28 PM on May 2, 2011

George W. Bush was eating dinner at a Dallas restaurant when word got to him. He rushed out, leaving Laura behind.

That's weird. Where was he going? Did he think he'd be needed somewhere?

He forgot Poland.
posted by Errant at 12:29 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

911 Jihad Street?
posted by mrgrimm at 12:29 PM on May 2, 2011

Just wanted to say I approve of this.
posted by grubi at 12:29 PM on May 2, 2011

Taiwanese rather; sorry EmpressCallipygos.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

who's going to be elevated to be Public Enemy No 1 now? Chavez? Amahdinajad?

Chavez is just a clown, not a real threat. Ahmadinejad, meh, not really. Not unless he does something stupid, which is possible although unlikely.

Nope. Gonna be Zawahiri.
posted by aramaic at 12:31 PM on May 2, 2011

Cheney, Rumsfeld and Limbaugh have all gone on record with praise for Obama today. Why do I feel like they're tricking me?
posted by EatTheWeek at 12:32 PM on May 2, 2011

I don't know who the individual bogeyman will be, but I would bet that it's likely that there will a drumbeat to do something punitive to Pakistan for knowingly harboring bin Laden for nearly a decade.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:34 PM on May 2, 2011

Taiwanese rather; sorry EmpressCallipygos.

Okay, now that made me laugh.
posted by chemoboy at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2011

John Brennan, the White House Counter-Terrorism Advisor who was just on C-Span, seemed quite excited about the volume and quantity of materials retrieved from the compound.

He definitely acted like a man who had just crossed the finish line of a 15-year effort, answering all sorts of security-oriented questions in detail and being effusively generous in his congratulations for all parties involved.

"The gutsiest decision of any president in recent memory," was IIRC his exact quote when asked about Obama's green light for the operation to proceed, which I almost immediately heard requoted as, "Obama's gutsiest decision".

Lots of good info in that presser.
posted by Aquaman at 12:36 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

2012 Election Cancelled

In what historians are calling an unprecedented development in American politics, both major parties decided today to cancel the 2012 election.

The decision to scrap the 2012 contest came on the heels of a new poll showing President Barack Obama with an approval rating of one hundred percent, believed to be a record high for an American president.

Mr. Obama even polled well among Republicans, with a majority of GOP voters agreeing with the statement, “I no longer care that he wasn’t born here.”

The new bipartisan spirit sweeping the nation was captured well by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who tearfully told reporters, “This is a great day for America… oh, leave me alone, goddamn it.”

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump made no official announcement, but sources said he was considering running for Prime Minister of Canada.

The cancellation of the election comes in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden, whose last words reportedly were, “I knew I shouldn’t have signed up for Foursquare.”

Of all the major news networks, Fox News did not report news of bin Laden’s death, saying that it would air cartoons “until further notice.”

In Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi issued the following official statement: “Uh-oh.”

In North Korea, President Kim Jong-Il said this: “I have lost my last friend on Facebook.”

And in Wasilla, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said this: “We must find and kill Osama bin Laden.”

posted by ericb at 12:37 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Bin Laden’s wives, children arrested in raid ; 1 son killed

Bin Laden's Son: Worst Is Yet to Come

Osama bin Laden and His Children

Family tree: "Osama bin Laden (1957-2011)(Killed by US in Pakistan) married Najwa Ghanem (b. 1960)
Abdullah Osama bin Laden (b. 1976)
Abdul Rahman bin Laden (b. 1978)
Saad bin Laden (1979–2009)
Omar Osama bin Laden (b. 1981) married to Zaina Alsabah bin Laden
Osman bin Laden (1983)
Ali bin Laden (b. 1984)
Mohammed bin Laden (b. 1985)
Fatima bin Laden (b. 1987)
Kadhija bin Laden (b. 1988)
Khalid bin Laden (b. 1989)
Miriam bin Laden (b. 1990)
Iman bin Laden (b. 1990)* Bin Laden's daughter free to leave Tehran: Iran FM (AFP 25 December 2009)
Ladin bin Laden (b. 1993)
Rukhaiya bin Laden (b. 1997)
Nour bin Laden (b. 1999)
Amer bin Laden (b. 1990)
Hamza bin Laden (b.1991)
Aisha bin Laden (b. 1992)
Sumaiya bin Laden (b. 1992)
Safia bin Laden, born to fifth wife, Amal al-Sadah"

OBL's mother Hamida al-Attas: "She was the tenth wife of Mohammed bin Laden." "It has been reported that she was a concubine rather than wife of Mohammed bin Laden." |"Osama bin Laden was her only child with Mohammad bin Laden. She often spent summers at her brother Naji's home in Latakia and Osama went with her until he was 17.[1] In 1974, when Osama was 18, he married her brother's daughter, 14-year-old Najwa Ghanem, who had been promised to him."

> At age 14, he [OBL] inherited $300 million.

"After hearing an audiotape of my father's own words taking credit for the attacks, I faced the reality that he was the perpetrator behind the events of September 11, 2001. This knowledge drives me into the blackest hole."

'He rarely eats meat but likes to go hunting'

He always suffered from kidney and stomach pains. He told me once that he was going to Pakistan for treatment.

Nasr: When did he tell you this?

AS: Nearly two months before the September events.

New Yorker article from 2005: Young Osama
How he learned radicalism, and may have seen America

And these special events that directly and personally affected me go back to 1982 and what happened when America gave permission for Israel to invade Lebanon. And assistance was given by the American sixth fleet.

During those crucial moments, my mind was thinking about many things that are hard to describe. But they produced a feeling to refuse and reject injustice, and I had determination to punish the transgressors.

And as I was looking at those towers that were destroyed in Lebanon, it occurred to me that we have to punish the transgressor with the same -- and that we had to destroy the towers in America so that they taste what we tasted, and they stop killing our women and children.

Despite praising the attacks, bin Laden initially denied responsibility for them. But by 2004 his videotaped statements showed him taking explicit responsibility for guiding the "19 brothers," as he called the hijackers. By then he was believed to be in hiding in the western mountains of Pakistan after escaping capture in the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001, following the American-backed reconquest of Afghanistan by anti-Taliban forces. Al-Qaeda is belived to have reconstituted since, using its Pakistan bases and training camps to regroup.
posted by nickyskye at 12:39 PM on May 2, 2011 [17 favorites]

CSPAN: John Boehner (Speaker of the House) to speak at 4pm eastern (20 minutes from now)
posted by cashman at 12:39 PM on May 2, 2011

"The gutsiest decision of any president in recent memory," was IIRC his exact quote when asked about Obama's green light for the operation to proceed, which I almost immediately heard requoted as, "Obama's gutsiest decision".

Got to be, right? When I heard it described this morning, I thought about how likely this could have been Carter II for Obama. The fact that none of the soldiers died in the execution of the raid is actually a bit mind-boggling. Serious kudos to everyone involved. Except for Bush and Cheney and shit - seriously, why the fuck are they getting credit for this? This was, without a doubt, Obama's plan from the git-go.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:40 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Cheney, Rumsfeld and Limbaugh have all gone on record with praise for Obama today. Why do I feel like they're tricking me?

Because like I said before, this is a conservative win, not a liberal one.

And I mean conservative in the philosophical sense, not Team Red vs. Team Blue.

The Democrats may benefit from this, but overall, this is a conservative world-view win. Even if he was the greatest d-bag in the world.
posted by formless at 12:42 PM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Remeber the president's quip at the Correspondents' Dinner, that he found a great self-help tool for his "arrogance," and that it was his polling numbers?

I really liked the ambiguity of that one.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:42 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Q: Has anybody talked about what else they might have found at the compound? I mean it's great that they got bin laden, but what about documents? Computers? His rolodex?

A: Yes, they grabbed two computers and other "materials," from what I heard.

Turns out he was really into Dragon Ball Z. Who knew?
posted by maryr at 12:43 PM on May 2, 2011

What's the point of linking to an article if you're just going to copy and paste the entire thing in the thread? Oh, and: needs more paragraph breaks.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:43 PM on May 2, 2011

It would be great if OBL's computers were filled with self-authored fan fiction porn that eerily predicted the exact manner of his death, down to its temporal proximity to a Trump-bashing White House Correspondents' Dinner.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is a win for the world, it brings more closure to this insanity. I give no credit to bush. Credit goes to the intel commnuity as the president said.
posted by clavdivs at 12:44 PM on May 2, 2011

define "us."

cynical "us":

Obama:

Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must --- and we will -- remain vigilant at home and abroad.

The military industrial complex, the TSA, the fear-mongers, and pot-stirrers.

hopeful "us":

Any person who has felt the effects of the economic burden of funding two conflicts. Any person who has had their civil liberties trampled on in the name of terror, with a reactionary response by their government. Any person who a decade later, can finally lay this dark decade to rest, find closure, and move on to better days where the goal isn't to kill an evil old man, but to provide a brighter future for our youth.
posted by clearly at 12:45 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing I've been wondering about regarding the burial:

Do we extend the same amount of care and courtesy to all other fallen enemies in the mideast?
posted by ymgve at 12:45 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Let's not confuse the unjust and brutal wars in Iraq and Afganistan with the unjust and heinous act organized by Osama bin Laden.

Right.
Because Osama killed several thousand American loved ones for a cause that didn't agree with.

And we killed or maimed over four hundred thousand American loved ones for a cause that we agreed with.

Right. Let's not conflate the two. I'm sure the news today is a huge comfort to those four hundred thousand broken lives.

Yesterday, when I heard the reactions to the news at the gates of the White House and in various places across America today I immediately thought of this.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 12:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

It would be great if OBL's computers were filled with self-authored fan fiction porn that eerily predicted the exact manner of his death, down to its temporal proximity to a Trump-bashing White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Actually just letters between him and Pat Buchanan discussing the NFL season.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Turns out he was really into Dragon Ball Z. Who knew?

That figures. MEga-protracted conflicts and posturing bullshit.

Osama = Piccolo?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:47 PM on May 2, 2011

Do we extend the same amount of care and courtesy to all other fallen enemies in the mideast?

I think it's fair to say this is a special case.
posted by chemoboy at 12:47 PM on May 2, 2011

who gets the reward?
posted by clavdivs at 12:47 PM on May 2, 2011

nobody shot Hitler

You know who shot Hitler?

HIT--wait. Look, I'll come in again.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:47 PM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

Teacher who vowed not to shave until bin Laden was caught or killed finally shaves
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Actually just letters between him and Pat Buchanan discussing the NFL season.
posted by Ironmouth

actually, Colls good bio on the bin ladens confirms the opposite. OBL was a googling fool and tv watcher in his last years.
posted by clavdivs at 12:49 PM on May 2, 2011

You guys shouldn't miss this incredible image from the NYT
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [14 favorites]

awesome pic
posted by clavdivs at 12:51 PM on May 2, 2011

I would bet they took his head and hands, put them on dry ice, and disposed of the rest of the body at sea. It is what I would do.
posted by JohnR at 12:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

ESPN even has coverage of the aftermath.
posted by Harpocrates at 12:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Note to self: Go ahead and skip JohnR's party Friday night.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:55 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

I don't see this as a conservative or liberal win. Obama did what both sides agree is right. It's a strawman to say that liberals don't want the military to go after our enemies. Most of the complaints I'm hearing from the mid to far left isn't that we should not have gone after Bin Laden, but that the public shouldn't celebrate anyone's death so much.

What we did was pretty agreeable with everyone. We found a person who committed mass murder against America, sent in an elite team to confront him, and they came willing to capture him instead of kill him if he agreed to surrender. He didn't, and he started a firefight, so the Navy SEALs ended up killing him, as would most likely happen if a person opened fire against a SWAT team.

There are details, like if we had permission from Pakistan to do this (It's not clear, from what I've read). And Rumsfeld is trying to say we could do it because of intel obtained from torture, which is a conservative spin on this. But the general mission isn't really a conservative or liberal mission. It's something we can all agree on. The thing is just that neoconservatives are better at posturing themselves as winners durring wartime, even though Democrats are skilled at handling wars as well. See FDR and Truman.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:55 PM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

Yesterday, when I heard the reactions to the news at the gates of the White House and in various places across America today I immediately thought of this.

I immediately thought of this. Both make me feel uneasy in the same way.
posted by chemoboy at 12:55 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

If you weren't there, then the video was faked! Hollywood! Photoshop! MAGIC BULLET!
posted by grubi at 12:56 PM on May 2, 2011

Is that footage real Chemoboy? I seem to remember at the time that they were celebrationg something else an dit was reworked? I may be wrong, it was ten years ago.

Also, didn't Bin Ladens dad build your military bases in Saudi Arabia? nice one, USA.
posted by marienbad at 12:59 PM on May 2, 2011

ESPN even has coverage of the aftermath

The Mets found themselves last to find out about Osama bin Laden.
posted by clearly at 12:59 PM on May 2, 2011

ESPN even has coverage of the aftermath.

WTF kind of world has ESPN writing the best editorial on this event? Why do sportswriters waste so much time covering sports of they can write like this?
posted by GuyZero at 12:59 PM on May 2, 2011

And Rumsfeld is trying to say we could do it because of intel obtained from torture, which is a conservative spin on this.

From what I've been able to find, it's not spin because it's actually factual.

This is a victory for both Presidents. Anyone who tries to take ownership of it for "their guy" is being obnoxiously partisan.
posted by rulethirty at 1:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Convict the man on his direct, actual crimes, not the crimes he supposedly inspired.

And again - why wasn't the building collapses of 9/11 listed on the FBI wanted poster? Is the FBI somehow not doing their job?

I mean, isn't the Iraq war an example of such a conspiracy, where the government presented deliberately falsified information to the nation and started yet another destructive war?

Ahhh, but the typical 'conspiracy theory' has things being kept from the public. And the whole Iraq thing was done in Congress and in the Congressional record which I'm sure everone read so anything said was known to everyone - therefore no secrecy....right?

Delmoi, the US government wasn't able to keep the fact that it was torturing people secret, but it successfully implied that the people alleging torture were kooks who had an axe to grind.

And I'm betting if you dig 'round in old metafilter you can see that being done.

I hope I'm misinterpreting this, but are you saying that you initially believed that the Clinton Administration lied or even perpetrated the OK City bombing? That is pretty out there...

Considering reports at the time had unexploded bombs being taken out of the building and reporting of 2 explosions, are you really sure you want to go down such an old rabbit hole?

(Its all good, the US Government came out with an official report of what happened so that was the truth and the end of the matter, right?)

I hope the helmet-cam videos are released.

Then there will be charges that they are no more than snuff films/pics. I believe such was the statement after collateral murder and the Saddam hangings. The Afgan 'posing with the dead' talked about earlier this year was likened to deer hunting trophy shots, as if that makes that better.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:02 PM on May 2, 2011

Has anybody talked about what else they might have found at the compound? I mean it's great that they got bin laden, but what about documents? Computers? His rolodex?

In fact, the NPR news item I heard on my lunch hour mentioned materials were seized at the compound and were being returned for analysis. Nothing more specific, though.
posted by aught at 1:02 PM on May 2, 2011

C-SPAN caller just got all 9-11 = INSIDE JOB. Whee!
posted by cortex at 1:03 PM on May 2, 2011

Teacher who vowed not to shave until bin Laden was caught or killed finally shaves

The irony being that he kind of made himself resemble bin Laden in doing so.
posted by aught at 1:04 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

WTF kind of world has ESPN writing the best editorial on this event? Why do sportswriters waste so much time covering sports of they can write like this?

Are you kidding? Sports writers write like that all the time. Keith Olberman was a sports writer. Ever see his "Special comments"? Same thing. I find it kind of annoying.
posted by delmoi at 1:04 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is that footage real Chemoboy?

I have heard so many conflicting things about it. So much that I think it's reasonable to assume that there was some celebrating, but also that some of the celebration was staged or unrelated to the September 11 attacks.
posted by chemoboy at 1:04 PM on May 2, 2011

tim.mccarty ... just a little heads up liberal != democrat.
posted by symbioid at 1:05 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Even as a committed Democrat, I have to admit that the Bush administration was largely responsible for the success of this operation. I mean, the guy was shot in the face. That's straight out of the Cheney playbook.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:05 PM on May 2, 2011 [26 favorites]

If it's going to take a video of him being shot and a third-party DNA test to confirm to you he's dead, I'm sorry, but super secret special ops missions don't take videographers with them

Helmet cams. The CIA used the video to do a facial recognition, and Obama was watching a live stream.
posted by delmoi at 1:05 PM on May 2, 2011

C-SPAN caller just got all 9-11 = INSIDE JOB. Whee!

Yeah that was from earlier this morning. C-SPAN was wacko central for like 20 minutes there.
posted by cashman at 1:06 PM on May 2, 2011

Another funny thing about this was the whole "and the stock market is up with the news of OBL's death."

I mean, I get it, its a big deal, but its funny to think that the killing of one man somehow made us all wealthier. OBL's death helped my 401k!
Don't argue with the market. It is always rational.

The market is actually down now. Why does capitalism hate America?
posted by Flunkie at 1:07 PM on May 2, 2011

This is a victory for both Presidents. Anyone who tries to take ownership of it for "their guy" is being obnoxiously partisan.

I don't give a shit about partisanship. I care about facts. Bush nearly immediately downgraded the importance of finding bin Laden and instead turned his attention and the resources available to him to Iraq. Obama, on the other hand, went to Panetta soon after taking office and said, "I want a plan on my desk that outlines how and when we're going to get bin Laden."

It's not that I won't give Bush credit for things he did well. It's just that in this case, Obama had a goal he pursued and accomplished. The only reason why Bush is getting credit is because people remember him standing on the rubble of Ground Zero with a megaphone.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 1:08 PM on May 2, 2011 [18 favorites]

Bush, Bush, Bush.

'cept he didn't do it, "didn't think about him much."

FAILURE
posted by Ironmouth at 1:08 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

MCCAIN: Now, on this issue of aiding Pakistan, if you're going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you'd better be prepared to pull the trigger.

I'm not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I'm not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan.
...
Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.
...
OBAMA: OBAMA: Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. Here's what I said.

And if John wants to disagree with this, he can let me know, that, if the United States has al Qaeda, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.

Now, I think that's the right strategy; I think that's the right policy.

And, John, I -- you're absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don't know, you know, how credible that is. I think this is the right strategy.

posted by kirkaracha at 1:08 PM on May 2, 2011 [21 favorites]

This is a victory for both Presidents.

Kind of like when Larry Holmes TKO'd Ali, it was a victory for both him and Sonny Liston.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [31 favorites]

In fact, the NPR news item I heard on my lunch hour mentioned materials were seized at the compound and were being returned for analysis. Nothing more specific, though.

Seems reasonable that they did gather up some stuff. Even if you hadn't actually seized anything, telling the world you had would at least introduce a lot of confusion and second guessing among the bad guys.
posted by notyou at 1:10 PM on May 2, 2011

The only reason why Bush is getting credit is because ~~people remember him standing on the rubble of Ground Zero with a megaphone.~~ BLACK PREZNIT FROM KENYA
posted by dhartung at 1:11 PM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

It was a compound with a 12-18' barbed wire fence and armed guards.

So it's available for a royal honeymoon now?

(Dailing Buckingham Palace)
posted by Danf at 1:11 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure why I have to say "please don't rickroll", but, you know, please don't rickroll.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:12 PM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

It was a compound with a 12-18' barbed wire fence and armed guards.

So it's available for a royal honeymoon now?

That place is a dump. I can't believe that's the best he could do for a million dollars. This is the worst episode of House Hunters International ever.
posted by Dr. Zira at 1:13 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will." Sen. Barack Obama - August 2007

And, for context:

Ironically, Bin Laden’s death -- in Pakistan -- recalls one of Obama’s supposed "lowest" moments during the ’08 presidential campaign, in Aug. 2007. In an Aug. 1 speech, per NBC’s John Bailey, Obama delivered these words: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistan] President Musharraf will not act, we will." At a debate two weeks later, Obama’s Democratic rivals used those remarks to paint Obama as either naïve or inexperienced. Said Hillary Clinton: “Pakistan is on a knife's edge. It is easily, unfortunately, a target for the jihadists. And, therefore, you've got to be very careful about what it is you say with respect to Pakistan.” Said Chris Dodd: “The only person that separates us from a jihadist government in Pakistan with nuclear weapons is President Musharraf. And, therefore, I thought it was irresponsible to engage in that kind of a suggestion here. That's dangerous. Words mean something in campaigns.” And said Edwards: “Musharraf is not a wonderful leader, but he provides some stability in Pakistan. And there is a great risk, if he's overthrown, about a radical government taking over.”

posted by ericb at 1:14 PM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Lots of good responses to the "give Bush credit too" meme, but I like George Spiggott's at 4:09 pm the best.
posted by Eyebeams at 1:17 PM on May 2, 2011

Lots of good responses to the "give Bush credit too" meme, but I like George Spiggott's at 4:09 pm the best.

How to get to the Johnson's? Well, just turn left when you get to where that old oak used to be.
posted by found missing at 1:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will." Sen. Barack Obama - August 2007

BTW - does anyone care a whole lot about Pakistan having nuke weapons and having said 'errr, we are Sovereign Nation and we are not wanting your military actions on our soil' now having this rather big action on their soil?
posted by rough ashlar at 1:21 PM on May 2, 2011

Ugh, I can't catch up, but these rumors/misinterpretations about the events that have propagated are disgusting. The idea that it was a kill mission (assassination), that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield, etc.

I wish people could just wait for the facts instead of making up destructive, agenda serving narratives from scarce information.
posted by polyhedron at 1:22 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Helmet cams. The CIA used the video to do a facial recognition, and Obama was watching a live stream.

But these would be directly from the same government who apparently may well be lying so they are no better than their word. After all, seeing Bin Laden in a video could be just seeing a Bin Laden.... LOOK ALIKE!

Or someone in the CIA could have some mysterious, as yet unexplained axe to grind and faked the footage and fooled Obama.
posted by juiceCake at 1:22 PM on May 2, 2011

some of the celebration was staged

It seems to have been real, and was condemned by the Palestinian Authority for obvious rational political ends. There were subsequent claims that the celebrations were very tiny and may have been encouraged.^^

The footage was run on FOX with breathless shock from the anchors. I'm not sure how it was run elsewhere. I know it's foolish to parse FOX, but I don't know why that should be the reaction. Those with unexamined lives unwilling to examine our role in the region should understand perfectly why at least some people would be pleased. But of course, those dozen or so people on camera in one bit of B-roll were made to stand in for the entire Muslim world in many minds, and probably still do.

Also, didn't Bin Ladens dad build your military bases in Saudi Arabia? nice one, USA.

Eh? Are you advocating some form of collective punishment here? The rest of the family has disavowed him for years.
posted by dhartung at 1:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"." (Just kidding.)

More like #!/usr/bin really...
posted by markkraft at 1:27 PM on May 2, 2011

Remember the president's quip at the Correspondents' Dinner, that he found a great self-help tool for his "arrogance," and that it was his polling numbers? .... I really liked the ambiguity of that one.

Yeah ... can you imagine what was going on in the President's mind as he sat on that dais on Saturday evening? Trashing Trump, the birthers, etc. -- all the while knowing that the next day, or so, it was likely that his actions would result in such groundbreaking news. And that the sideshows would be ignored and the carnival barkers silenced for some time to come.
posted by ericb at 1:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm 48 years old. Objectively, the US government has systematically lied to me all my life - from the bombing of Laos and Cambodia to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and beyond.

You're not being objective, at all.

First of all, the US government has not lied to you particularly. Your choice of words conjures up an image of cabinet officials debating what lupus_yonderboy should be told about this or that. While I am sure this is entirely unintentional, your tone of personal offense is very much at odds with your claims of objectivity.

Second, it is true that the US government has lied to the public many times during the last 48 years. But the idea that this amounts to a systematic campaign of deception is irrational. The federal government is a huge organization that governs a huge country and which is staffed by fallible human beings, many of whom are replaced every election cycle. Disagreements are inevitable in such a system, given the wide variations of interests, beliefs, and capabilities in American society. Extreme disagreements will involves disputes about ethical matters, for causes ranging from matters of principle to venality, ass-covering and sometimes corruption.

Third, you speak as if the US is exceptional among nations in having ethical lapses, as if nations and governments in general were paragons of honesty and transparency. Every country has secrets, scandals, and episodes of official malfeasance. While that fact should not be relied on as an excuse, nor should it be ignored when you are asserting to the objectivity of your opinion. The US is consistently ranked as one of the most open and transparent societies in the world when it comes to matters of governance and legal process. To pretend otherwise is facile.

Fourth, the idea that opacity and ethical biddability in matters of war are an essential or current characteristic of the US lacks foundaction. Thucydides in his History of the Peleponnesian War argues that nations go to war for three reasons: fear, honor, and to protect their interests. He also asserts that the complexities of statecraft are such that rulers will generally manipulate the public to varying degrees; if the public were a reliable judge of its own interests, governments would not need to be instituted in the first place. It is worth recalling that Athenian society was the cradle of democratic, republican, and constitutional concepts. It initiated war with the Spartans, a monarchical society with a considerably smaller institutional footprint, often cited approvingly for its relative isolationism and ethos of simplicity - but which was feared by the Athenians for its brutality and mindless fanaticism, and which saw foreign relations of any kind as a mere prelude to armed conflict and had structured its entire society around that premise.

If you are skeptical of the US government in this matter, that is your judgment to make. But if you announce yourself as a herald of objectivity then you are in no position to complain when your arguments are weighed and found wanting for lack of anything more substantial than a reflexive disappointment.

This is not to say that you, or we, should not be disappointed or disapproving when the government acts unethically, whether the fault is individual or institutional. The freedom to criticize and advocate for change in our governance is the essence of liberty, regardless of whether the issue is an individual's relationship with the state or a lofty abstract principle. Likewise, the price of such freedom is a partial responsibility for the policies we allow to be carried out on our behalf and a share the collective risks that inure to the pursuit of such policies, however direct or indirect the benefits we derive from their successful exercise.

Most of us are familiar with the saying 'my country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; if wrong, to be put right.' Often credited to Admiral Stephen Decatur, it is more properly attributed to Carl Schurz, a German-American immigrant who later served as Secretary of the Interior. While a stern critic of empty nationalism and a champion of accountability, Schurz's aphorism is an essentially pragmatic statement, rooted in worldly wisdom. The human condition is an imperfect one, and when imperfections are amplified by the machinery of state injustices are an inevitability. Schurz articulated an ethical standard for dealing with this unavoidable reality, instead of substituting expression for action.

To unilaterally reject the concept of state or declare it irredeemably tainted is to abdicate one's civic responsibility and profess oneself a victim of injustice by proxy. The assertion that disappointment is endless, and that injury suffered (or imagined) can never be made whole is an expression of incapacity and frustration, which may well be justified by circumstances. But once expressed, it is without value as a basis for action; either you accept the fact of disappointment and begin the long and often painful process of remediation, or you reject the possibility of repair. In the latter case, others will eventually cede you whatever grounds for dissatisfaction you have staked out for yourself and leave you to it. The more implacable you declare yourself to be, the less often you will find yourself consulted for your opinion and the less weight will be given to it. If the cost of securing your agreement becomes greater than the value of your contribution, then people will eventually stop trying.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [44 favorites]

BTW - does anyone care a whole lot about Pakistan having nuke weapons and having said 'errr, we are Sovereign Nation and we are not wanting your military actions on our soil' now having this rather big action on their soil?

Pakistan is claiming that they gave consent. If in fact they didn't, they clearly don't want to pick this battle any further.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 1:29 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The idea that it was a kill mission (assassination), that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield, etc.

I wish people could just wait for the facts instead of making up destructive, agenda serving narratives from scarce information.

huh? Are you saying that the White House spokeguy who reported this made it up?
posted by found missing at 1:29 PM on May 2, 2011

Barney Frank On Cantor Crediting Bush For Killing Bin Laden: ‘That’s Just Sad’
posted by ericb at 1:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Right Rushes To Praise Bush For Obama’s Order To Kill Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 1:32 PM on May 2, 2011

Osama captured while sitting on toilet, nation likes to imagine
posted by angrycat at 1:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, that about wraps it up for the VHS industry.
posted by run"monty at 1:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Right Rushes To Praise Bush For Obama’s Order To Kill Bin Laden.

I'm sure they'll do the same in matters of the economy right?
posted by juiceCake at 1:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The federal government is a huge organization that governs a huge country and which is staffed by fallible human beings

Hence the Supreme Court decision FEDERAL CROP INS. CORP V. MERRILL where you should never believe what you are being told by a Government Official, you should always check for yourself.

(I like the language of Justice Jackson: It is very well to say that those who deal with the Government should turn square corners. But there is no reason why the square corners should constitute a one-way street.)
posted by rough ashlar at 1:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

rough ashlar, the Pak government knows who is buttering its bread.

There were some pro forma statements during the Raymond Davis affair for domestic consumption, but the basic underpinnings of the US-Pakistan alliance were unchanged.
posted by dhartung at 1:35 PM on May 2, 2011

Are you saying that the White House spokeguy who reported this made it up?

More than just a spokesperson ... Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan:

President Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Monday that U.S. military operatives were prepared to capture Osama bin Laden alive but were "absolutely" ready to kill him if he fought back.

"If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that," Brennan said during an uncharacteristically candid exchange with reporters at a White House briefing.

Intelligence officials and Obama “extensively” discussed the prospect of capturing bin Laden alive during the U.S. military raid on his compound Sunday, Brennan said, but were “certainly were planning for the possibility … that he would likely resist arrest.” In the end, the al Qaeda leader fought back and was “therefore killed in a fire fight,” Brennan said.

The bottom line, said Brennan, was that “we were not going to put our people at risk.”

Brennan painted a dark scene of bin Laden's final moments. He said the al Qaeda leader used one of his wives as a human shield while he was being shot at. [more]

posted by ericb at 1:36 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

From ericbs' link above:

Former Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card: “[Bush] made sure everything was in place so that President Obama could have an opportunity to get Osama bin Laden.”

"Made sure everything was in place"? Is that why he refused the Taliban's offer to surrender Bin Laden to him in October 2001, so that ten years later his predecessor would get the credit?

What a generous man!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Again, John Brennan and a carefully chosen word: Bin Ladin's wife served as a human shield. He goes on to explicitly state that whether she put herself in that position or was placed there by others is unknown.
posted by Aquaman at 1:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Reuters: "White House Undecided About Releasing Bin Laden Photos."
posted by ericb at 1:41 PM on May 2, 2011

Is that why he refused the Taliban's offer to surrender Bin Laden to him in October 2001, so that ten years later his predecessor would get the credit?

Oh get real. I just went to the article linked above, and the Taliban's "offer" was to hand OBL to a third country once the US stopped bombing Afghanistan and provided "evidence" of OBL's role in the 9/11 attacks. Sounds like a highly conditional propaganda ploy to me.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:45 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

huh? Are you saying that the White House spokeguy who reported this made it up?

I missed the press conference catching up on the thread and can't find a transcript, but I am under the distinct impression he did not say anything to the effect that "bin Laden grabbed his wife and held her in front of him" which is the implication that has been made by numerous sources and what I object to.

anigbrowl, pleeeeease don't bring that derail back, pleeeeeease.
posted by polyhedron at 1:46 PM on May 2, 2011

Yesterday, when I heard the reactions to the news at the gates of the White House and in various places across America today I immediately thought of [1984's Two Minute Hate]

What about people at a sports event or a rock concert, do rowdies at those events remind you of the Two Minutes Hate, too? Because watching people cheer at the White House reminded me of people cheering their home team. Which is less decorous than the occasion called for, but not that surprising given the circumstances. It's enough to make the point that war isn't a football game and killing isn't a touchdown win without having to drag in old George for extra effect.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Faint of Butt, then why does new Osama have old Osama's DNA? Did he have a twin?

Or is this some crazy GATTACA stuff where new Osama replaces all his hairflakes and blood and urine with old Osama's?
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:47 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's enough to make the point that war isn't a football game and killing isn't a touchdown win

We sure are behaving like it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

After thinking it over, I believe that Bin Laden died several years ago, whether in a bombing or of natural causes. A lookalike relative assumed his identity. Nobody knew about it except for his innermost circle, and certainly the average Al Qaeda operative was never told. The US government probably suspected, but had no concrete proof. Now the second Osama Bin Laden is dead, killed in the raid, and the rest of the narrative goes just the way Obama has told it.

And don't forget that Osama was a huge Paul McCartney fan so this scenario is entirely plausible but even better due to the DNA trickery!
posted by juiceCake at 1:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

lookalike relative

Occam's Razor states: do not multiply entities
posted by unSane at 1:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

BTW - does anyone care a whole lot about Pakistan having nuke weapons and having said 'errr, we are Sovereign Nation and we are not wanting your military actions on our soil' now having this rather big action on their soil?
posted by rough ashlar at 4:21 PM on May 2 [+] [!]

Not particularly: it would be an incredibly suicidal move for them to launch a nuke at this time and the Pakistani administration isn't insane. And India would immediately roll over them if they did. And we would help. And also as far as I know they don't have ICBMs, so how would they launch a nuclear strike on the US?

Honestly, it's a very Alex Jones-y worry to have. Nothing to do with the real world.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

More than just a spokesperson ... Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan:

Except that the news reporting is lazy and facile. Brennan specifically refused to say that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield in the sense that we mean the word. He also specifically refused to rule out the scenario where she threw herself in front of bullets to protect her husband.
posted by Justinian at 1:50 PM on May 2, 2011

After thinking it over, I believe that Bin Laden died several years ago, whether in a bombing or of natural causes. A lookalike relative assumed his identity. Nobody knew about it except for his innermost circle, and certainly the average Al Qaeda operative was never told. The US government probably suspected, but had no concrete proof. Now the second Osama Bin Laden is dead, killed in the raid, and the rest of the narrative goes just the way Obama has told it.

But but but what if they killed the lookalike in the bombing several years ago and the real one yesterday. Or – get ready for this, man – what if they killed a lookalike in the bombing, another lookalike yesterday, and the real Osama Bin Laden is about to lead the Libyan rebels to victory! I just blew your mind. Wheels within wheels!
posted by furiousthought at 1:52 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm not sure if this burial-at-sea effectively stops people from treating OBL's grave as a shrine.

More likely, it turns the entire Arabian Sea into a massive shrine, easily accessible to all.

(And in doing so, reapportions some sacredness from rocks in Mecca or saints' mausoleums towards bodies of water instead - something that will be of immense amusement to Hindus)
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:52 PM on May 2, 2011

Nothing to do with the real world.

And here I was thinking when Nations have sovereign lines drawn on a map crossing them with military shows of force was a rule-of-law issue.

It sounds like Pakistan had either backed down or the idea I had that they were complaining about the US making things blow up inside there nation was incorrect.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:52 PM on May 2, 2011

Newseum: Today's Front Pages (very slow right now though).
posted by BungaDunga at 1:53 PM on May 2, 2011

... he did not say anything to the effect that "bin Laden grabbed his wife and held her in front of him" which is the implication that has been made by numerous sources and what I object to.

Yeah ... these are the words he used:

"There was a female who was in fact in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire ... He was engaged in a firefight. Whether or not he got off any rounds, I don't know."

posted by ericb at 1:53 PM on May 2, 2011

"bin Laden grabbed his wife and held her in front of him" which is the implication that has been made by numerous sources and what I object to.

The press conference this afternoon made it clear that it is unknown how she got to be a shield, but she was a shield. I think it gets confused when it is said "she was used as a shield" which then easily gets stated as "Bin Laden used her as a human shield", which is true but also implies action to put her in front of him on his part. Which remains unknown, at least as far as the Brennan press conference this afternoon.
posted by cashman at 1:53 PM on May 2, 2011

More likely, it turns the entire Arabian Sea into a massive shrine, easily accessible to all.

What's next? Claims of 72 mermaids?
posted by rough ashlar at 1:54 PM on May 2, 2011

I believe that Bin Laden died several years ago
posted by clavdivs at 1:54 PM on May 2, 2011

I believe that children are our future.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:55 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Relations with Pakistan are a bit chilly right now.

President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser called it "inconceivable" that Pakistan was not providing a "support system" for Osama bin Laden, who was killed Sunday in a raid in a mansion north of the capital city of Islamabad.

"We are pursuing all leads on this issue," Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said during a White House briefing. "I think people are raising a number of questions, and understandably so."

Brennan said bin Laden likely would not have been able to hide undetected at the compound — which is in close proximity to a Pakistani military installation — without help from within the country. He declined to speculate on what that help might include.

He said the administration is in contact with Pakistan's government and intelligence establishment about the situation.*

posted by ericb at 1:55 PM on May 2, 2011

Dinner is in everyone's future.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:55 PM on May 2, 2011

What's next? Claims of 72 mermaids?

Absolutely. Only, as we all know, 'mermaids' are actually manatees.

You get a bit desperate when you've been at sea for months.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

San Diego Padres to don camo, offer free tickets to honor military for bin Laden
posted by BobbyVan at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011

nothing screams revolution then no dinner, really.
posted by clavdivs at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011

And here I was thinking when Nations have sovereign lines drawn on a map crossing them with military shows of force was a rule-of-law issue.

Sorry, I thought your point was the possibility of a nuclear retaliation from Pakistan for these events. Was it not? Because that's not a realistic thing to worry about.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011

OK, so everyone who's saying that now that he's dead, Bin Laden won't be releasing any more taped messages, right? But doesn't it stand to reason that if he's this terrorist propaganda mastermind, he's got pre-recorded videos of himself saying stuff like, "The American infidel claims to have killed me, but I am saying to you today that I still live to exhort you to further bloodshed against them" or whatever?
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I believe I can fly.
posted by ob at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

BRANDON BLATCHER IS A WITCH.
posted by grubi at 1:57 PM on May 2, 2011

I believe Bin Laden is getting in good with Elvis and Jim Morrison right about now.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:58 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

But doesn't it stand to reason that if he's this terrorist propaganda mastermind, he's got pre-recorded videos of himself

Of course, but unless he's holding up today's ISLAMABAD SUN, who cares?
posted by unSane at 2:00 PM on May 2, 2011

I believe Bin Laden is getting in good with Elvis and Jim Morrison right about now.

NPR ran a story about Bin Laden's neighbors and all I could think was "Does he BBQ? Have rowdy parties? Mow the lawn?"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I believe Bin Laden is getting in good with Elvis and Jim Morrison right about now.
I'm not sure if this implies Bin Laden is in heaven or Elvis is in hell but, either way, I'm upset.
posted by dirtdirt at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

What I kept thinking last night, watching people celebrate the death of OBL was,
"A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger." Because, due to my religious upbringing I have these Bible savant moments. I'd have been more comfortable if the immediate response to his death was a candle vigil for peace. Also, I like unicorns.
posted by Euphorbia at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Good point, unSane.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:01 PM on May 2, 2011

So, who back in 2001 picked May 1, 2011 in the Bin Laden dead pool? With a black president? Anyone?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

I believe Osama Bin Laden is merely just a shadow on the wall of the cave of perception.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Of course, but unless he's holding up today's ISLAMABAD SUN, who cares?

What, like some underling isn't good enough with iMovie to make that happen?
posted by kingbenny at 2:04 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm not sure if this implies Bin Laden is in heaven or Elvis is in hell

Neither! They're both at a Motel 6!
posted by octobersurprise at 2:05 PM on May 2, 2011

Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn’t something a special ops team can fix.
posted by EarBucket at 2:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

UbuRoivas writes "I'm not sure if this burial-at-sea effectively stops people from treating OBL's grave as a shrine.

"More likely, it turns the entire Arabian Sea into a massive shrine, easily accessible to all."

Neatly avoiding mass congregation points that make for good media coverage.

ericb writes "Relations with Pakistan are a bit chilly right now."

Canada would be pretty pissed if the US up and mounted a military offensive on Canadian soil without even so much as a heads up before hand. Well we'd be pissed at unilateral action if there was a heads up but it would be a whole other kind of pissed.
posted by Mitheral at 2:10 PM on May 2, 2011

While aggressive crowd chants are not my thing, I don't the think the gathering outside the White House was exclusively a display of ugly nationalism by any means. I watched the news last night on C-SPAN, and while they were trying to come up with a new schedule and patch in a link to Al-Jazeera to get some global reaction they just ran a feed of the crowd for about 10 minutes.

After a while I noticed that one of the figures in the crowd enthusiastically waving an American flag and exchanging hugs with passers-by was not just some kid in a hoodie, but a young Muslim woman wearing hijab. Indeed, she wasn't the only one. That put me in rather a good mood for the rest of the evening.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:11 PM on May 2, 2011 [11 favorites]

Of course, but unless he's holding up today's ISLAMABAD SUN, who cares?

Everyone knows it's the Islamabad Picayune-Times Register, duh.
posted by rtha at 2:11 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Canadians are always pissed at US offenses. But you get used to it after awhile. The oafs just can't help themselves.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:12 PM on May 2, 2011

"More likely, it turns the entire Arabian Sea into a massive shrine, easily accessible to all."

Just think of the homeopathic properties of the sea water now. The Bin Laden per million gallon ratio will be undetectable, making it extremely potent.
posted by found missing at 2:13 PM on May 2, 2011 [19 favorites]

The 3-D version...
posted by klausness at 2:14 PM on May 2, 2011

What, like some underling isn't good enough with iMovie to make that happen?

You'd need at least Final Cut and Motion, and the skills to use them. Tracking a moving, flexible object is non-trivial. You'd need to do it with blank newsprint for the lighting and then layer in the text, and distort it to match the contours of the paper. So unless there's someone in the immediate circle with the equipment and skills, which I doubt, you'd have to outsource it, which is a mammoth security risk. None of the other videos have shown anything like that level of technical acumen.
posted by unSane at 2:14 PM on May 2, 2011

New York Times: How the Bin Laden Announcement Leaked Out.
posted by ericb at 2:16 PM on May 2, 2011

Just think of the homeopathic properties of the sea water now. The Bin Laden per million gallon ratio will be undetectable, making it extremely potent.

And due to the law of similars, the entire Arabian Sea is now a potent cure for terrorist tendencies! Genius!
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:17 PM on May 2, 2011 [13 favorites]

The Associated Press gives additional details on the role of black sites and Bush era detention policies in developing the intelligence that led to Osama bin Laden.

In a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe years ago, al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, gave authorities the nicknames of several of bin Laden's couriers, four former U.S. intelligence officials said. Those names were among thousands of leads the CIA was pursuing.

One man became a particular interest for the agency when another detainee, Abu Faraj al-Libi, told interrogators that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational leader he received the word through a courier. Only bin Laden would have given al-Libi that promotion, CIA officials believed.

If they could find that courier, they'd find bin Laden.

The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.

Canadians are always pissed at US offenses. But you get used to it after awhile. The oafs just can't help themselves.

On the other hand I think the US is the only country Canada has ever actually invaded, so there's that. Of course it was retaliation for the US invading us, but still.
posted by unSane at 2:18 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

that would be england not canada
posted by clavdivs at 2:19 PM on May 2, 2011

You'd need to do it with blank newsprint for the lighting and then layer in the text, and distort it to match the contours of the paper.

Well, instead of blank newsprint you use something like a chroma sheet with a registration pattern laid over the top and then you can probably let software do all of your texture-mapping and rough lighting work for you and OH MY GOD WHY ARE WE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION
posted by cortex at 2:19 PM on May 2, 2011 [22 favorites]

None of the other videos have shown anything like that level of technical acumen.

You are correct, sir. My joke fell with a big thud.
posted by kingbenny at 2:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Tea Party Nation: Obama Only Killed Bin Laden To Help His Reelection.
posted by ericb at 2:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

I don't want to turn this thread into Philosophy 101 now that we're already 2000+ comments in, but I'm not sure why the ethical and moral concerns about torture and unlawful imprisonment can be dismissed if torture got us useful information.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

"OH MY GOD WHY ARE WE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION"

Better us than Glenn Beck?
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:22 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

As a country we can only truly finish processing an event once it is summarized in .gif form. I have found this .gif and humbly present it to you all.
posted by furiousthought at 2:24 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oops ... link for 'Obama Only Killed Bin Laden To Help His Reelection.'
posted by ericb at 2:24 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm very curious to see what becomes of the land the mansion was on. If anything will become a shrine, that'll be it.

Pakistan, why are you squirming around so much?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:24 PM on May 2, 2011

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.
posted by gerryblog at 2:24 PM on May 2, 2011 [11 favorites]

Glenn Beck sounds like a man with a mouth full of pennies.
posted by clavdivs at 2:25 PM on May 2, 2011

I suggest they just pose some people in Gary's Mod and make a model of Osama and the newspaper and call it a day.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:26 PM on May 2, 2011

New York Times: Bin Laden’s Death Likely to Deepen Suspicions of Pakistan.
posted by ericb at 2:26 PM on May 2, 2011

Canada would be pretty pissed if the US up and mounted a military offensive on Canadian soil without even so much as a heads up before hand. Well we'd be pissed at unilateral action if there was a heads up but it would be a whole other kind of pissed.

This is all true but also misleading; The US wouldn't mount a military offensive on Canadian soil without so much as a heads up. There would be no need. Canada would waste bin Laden themselves if they had extremely time-limited actionable intelligence and assets in place. That's not so likely, though, so instead they'd pass along the info at the highest levels and cooperate fully.
posted by Justinian at 2:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Glenn Beck sounds like a man with a mouth full of pennies.

nah, krugerrands
posted by found missing at 2:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bin Laden's death rekindles 'enhanced' interrogation debate.
posted by ericb at 2:29 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm surprised how many media outlets are using the photo of Osama bin Laden that I'm most familiar with as being the one with bin Laden and Evil Bert.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:31 PM on May 2, 2011

I suggest we go back to tradition and use solely castratti pundits.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:31 PM on May 2, 2011

"you had the royal wedding and we have this"

Now waiting for the first pictures to be released from the firefight scene so that they can become part of the frowning bridesmaid covering ears meme.
posted by found missing at 2:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I don't want to turn this thread into Philosophy 101 now that we're already 2000+ comments in, but I'm not sure why the ethical and moral concerns about torture and unlawful imprisonment can be dismissed if torture got us useful information.

They cannot. Nor has it been shown the information itself came from torture.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

The argument that torturing hundreds of people for 10 years produces timely, effective information is it's own counterargument.

It's the same logic as saying always betting on your lucky numbers in the lottery for years on end is a timely, effective way to invest money.
posted by yeloson at 2:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm pretty sure Limbaugh's 'praise' was sarcastic. After all, he followed that opening rant with:

"I, me, my, three of the most used words in President Obama's media appearance last night, not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, military adviser, came up with the idea...not one of them... according to Obama, had the ability to understand the need to get DNA. This was Obama's message last night," Limbaugh said.

He's just pushing that tired 'Obama As Messiah' meme he loves to use.
posted by NationalKato at 2:38 PM on May 2, 2011

What am I supposed to do with the souvenir t-shirt of a crosshair over OBL's head and "AMERICA'S #1 MOST WANTED" on it? It would just be tacky to wear it now.

Use it for cleaning, perhaps around the toilet.
posted by jgirl at 2:39 PM on May 2, 2011

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.

Interesting detail: The paper under the pixelated one is an aerial photo of bin Laden's compound.
posted by ymgve at 2:40 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.

There is so much in this picture.
posted by cashman at 2:40 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Although I am only at the 1:20am Eastern mark in the thread, and have no idea where the current conversation is (739 new comments available above this comment box), I was thinking: man, if this had happened during the Bush years (or hell, maybe even under McCain, had he won), there would have been no announcement until like, November 1st, 2012. And the announcement would have actually been just a picture of Palin ripping out bin Laden's jugular with her teeth.
posted by m0nm0n at 2:43 PM on May 2, 2011

Canada would be pretty pissed if the US up and mounted a military offensive on Canadian soil without even so much as a heads up before hand.

*cough*

The paper under the pixelated one is an aerial photo of bin Laden's compound.

I'm pretty sure the pixelated one is just a color photo of the same compound, probably taken by a Global Hawk, and thus classified. Give it a good squint.
posted by dhartung at 2:43 PM on May 2, 2011

That is an amazing photograph. That's not actually Aaron Sorkin leaning around baldy, is it? Looks a lot like him...
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:44 PM on May 2, 2011

gerryblog: "Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold."

Actually, based on The West Wing I would have expected that room to be much darker.
posted by brundlefly at 2:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I love how in the picture Hillary's book is something like "TOP SECRET CODE WORDS"...and then something like.."FOR SITUATION ROOM ONLY"
posted by cashman at 2:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Rumsfeld:

Courier source not waterboarded.

Makes sense, as waterboarding and the worst of it was done overseas on non-US soil deliberately, and Guantanamo was listed as source of info.

So fuck you torturers.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Glenn Beck sounds like a man with a mouth full of pennies.

For reasons I'd really rather not explore, I first read this as "Glenn Beck sounds like a nun with a mouth full of penises."

I think I've been reading the internet too long...
posted by steambadger at 2:45 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.

It is exactly because of Aaron Sorkin that my first thought when seeing that picture is "that's the Situation Room? But it's so bright!"
posted by penduluum at 2:45 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.

Those efforts took place off the map, sure: black sites. I'll bet cash money the useful information was not gained by bloodied torture but by isolation and friendliness.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This wouldn't have happened under McCain:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_05/029220.php
posted by darkstar at 2:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

That is a remarkable photo.
posted by found missing at 2:47 PM on May 2, 2011

Actually, based on The West Wing I would have expected that room to be much darker.

And larger. And the President would get to sit in the big chair.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I genuinely don't understand how this and this can be of the same Situation Room. They look very different in size.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:48 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm guessing the right is trying to argue torture is the only way to be safe (I don't know how to make the font scary), so therefore, we are required to torture if we wish to live. It's an existential mandate.

But that's a pretty strange argument. For one thing, it's not the only way to get information. There are other ways to get information that are widely seen as morally superior and less prone to produce fake information. And it goes against our values as a nation, which become meaningless if we choose to ignore them.

There's also the weird duality of the right arguing that torture is so horrible that it's effective, but also so minor it wouldn't bother anyone long-term and shouldn't even really be called torture.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

That's a heck of a picture. Look at it in full size and pan around a bit.

Look at HRC.

And look at the General at his keyboard and Gates in the corner arms crossed and the paper coffee cups with the presidential seal.
posted by notyou at 2:49 PM on May 2, 2011

President Obama deserves tremendous credit for his courageous decision to embark on a risky assault on bin Laden's compound (instead of an easy drone attack). But as more information is disclosed about the provenance of the intelligence, credit must also be paid to former President Bush and the brave men and women of the CIA.

So we can just ignore all of stories about how the CIA tactics turned allies into enemies overnight and further proved that America was just another unexceptional state? You're talking about the CIA that entirely missed the end of the Cold War and 9/11 and created the seeds of al Qaeda and manufactured evidence that got us into the Iraq War. Their record, so far, is pretty awful.
posted by notion at 2:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just Do It.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:49 PM on May 2, 2011

Michael Bay has taught me there's usually a few Macs and high school students who look like models at these things.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wow, Pete Souza is great at what he does.
posted by reductiondesign at 2:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

This wouldn't have happened under McCain.

Which is an interesting difference between McCain and Bush. Bush made it US policy that military actions within Pakistan's borders against Al Qaeda could be launched without the prior consent of the Pakistani government.
posted by BobbyVan at 2:50 PM on May 2, 2011

The best part of the picture of the Situation Room is that everyone is all into whatever shit is on the screen, and Biden can hardly be arsed because he's texting Sheila down at Texas Roadhouse to see if it's half-off Jalapeno poppers night.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 2:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

Rumsfeld: Courier source not waterboarded.

That ought to settle it. If he'd been tortured, Rumsfeld and Cheney would be all over TV trying to exonerate themselves right now. If Rumsfeld says the guy wasn't tortured, he wasn't tortured.
posted by EarBucket at 2:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Video of Osama Bin Laden's house and surrounding area taken by locals

Warning, graphic: Pakistani channels withdraw image that was said to be of a dead Osama Bin Laden (in Arabic)

11 hours ago, Bakr Atyani speaks of the city that killed Bin Laden Al Arabiya video of a man in Abbottabad discussing death of OBL (in Arabic)

The views of Iraqis after the killing of Osama bin Laden (in Arabic)

JSOC: The Black Ops Force That Took Down Bin Laden At that point you had JSOC operating as an extension of the [administration] doing things the executive branch—read: Cheney and Rumsfeld—wanted it to do. This would be more or less carte blanche. You need to do it, do it. It was very alarming for me as a conventional soldier.”

The primacy of JSOC within the Obama administration’s foreign policy—from Yemen and Somalia to Afghanistan and Pakistan—indicates that he has doubled down on the Bush-era policy of targeted assassination as a staple of US foreign policy.

New Test for U.S.-Pakistan Relations Despite the weekend's success, nuclear-armed Pakistan is still rife with Islamist militants who threaten both their own government and the West; most had only a tangential relationship with Mr. bin Laden and, strategically, are unlikely to be affected by his death.

"At best, the Pakistanis look totally incompetent," said C. Christine Fair of Georgetown University. "At worst, they look completely complicit."

Hindko is the language of Hazara, where Abbottabad is located.

Pakistan Military Academy, located less than 1 kilometer from Osama Bin Laden's house/compound in Abbottabad.

there's an Olive Garden en route to Abbottabad

Time mag article on @ReallyVirtual's tweets | his Twitter statistics

Pics of Abbottabad

Video New York Times: Reactions from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States on the death of Osama bin Laden.

Dick Cheney Says 'Obama Deserves Credit' for Osama Bin Laden's Death

Very interesting Q&A Facebook Transcript: Live Chat on Bin Laden Death

On FaceBook: Starting now, Michael D. Shear of The Times's Washington bureau will reply to your questions and comments about the news of Osama bin Laden's death and what implications it might have on the political scene.
posted by nickyskye at 2:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [18 favorites]

notion: I'm giving credit to the CIA for uncovering the intelligence that led to the whereabouts of bin Laden, that's all. And if you're going to accuse the CIA of manufacturing evidence w/ regard to WMD's in Iraq, I'm going to need to ask for a cite.
posted by BobbyVan at 2:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm fascinated by Obama's face in that Situation Room picture. That's the look of a man who knows that in about fifteen minutes, he's either going to be the biggest hero or the biggest fuckup in the country.
posted by EarBucket at 2:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Occam's Razor states: do not multiply entities

Right. But now imagine there are two Occams...
posted by eeeeeez at 2:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [13 favorites]

One thing about the operation that I keep thinking is that it was very very nearly a disaster -- the helo stalled and they had to ditch it then blow it up. What a knife edge.
posted by unSane at 2:55 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:56 PM on May 2, 2011 [11 favorites]

Rumsfeld: Courier source not waterboarded.

How about the rest of what Rumsfeld said:

It certainly points up the fact that the structures that President Bush put into place — military commissions, Guantanamo Bay, the Patriot Act, indefinite detention, and humane treatment, but intensive interrogation to be sure — all contributed to the success we’ve had in the global war on terror.

If you think it's a good thing that President Obama has presided over a successful operation to take out the head of Al Qaeda, you need to accept a few inconvenient truths in the process.</em

So you think it is a bad thing that President Obama has presided over an operation to bring bin Laden to justice?
posted by Ironmouth at 2:59 PM on May 2, 2011

John Brennan and a carefully chosen word: Bin Ladin's wife served as a human shield. He goes on to explicitly state that whether she put herself in that position or was placed there by others is unknown.

option C is she just got caught in the cross-fire
posted by mokuba at 2:59 PM on May 2, 2011

Obama did what both sides agree is right.

Of course there are only two sides!

We found a person who committed mass murder against America

Allegedly.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:00 PM on May 2, 2011

My point is, regardless of whether torture gets us useful information or not, I don't think that's the point of the international policies against it, and I don't think that's a significant argument for its deployment. From all that I've read, torture is pretty useless for intelligence; however, if it suddenly and miraculously did get us information in the nick of time to save a busload of schoolchildren or whatever, that wouldn't change my objections to it.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:00 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

So you think it is a bad thing that President Obama has presided over an operation to bring bin Laden to justice?

What gives you that idea? I'm thrilled at the outcome, and congratulate the President and his team.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:00 PM on May 2, 2011

If you think it's a good thing that President Obama has presided over a successful operation to take out the head of Al Qaeda, you need to accept a few inconvenient truths in the process.

Oh, I see. My entire hierarchy of principles must be discarded. Thanks for letting me know!

Are you really just here for the moral gotchas? Please. We have actual things to discuss.
posted by dhartung at 3:02 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Allegedly

Are you calling Bin Laden a liar?
posted by found missing at 3:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I love this picture too. This guy is writing a speech he knows will be watched by gazillions and put in the history books for ages - how is my desk messier than his?
posted by cashman at 3:04 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fascinating thread.

I lost a high school classmate who was on one of the planes taken into the Towers, and a law school classmate who was working in one of the Towers when the planes hit. I've been angry all the way through for nearly 10 years that OBL was not brought to account for his crimes. I give thanks to our President for coming through again on a key campaign promise, and all the intelligence and military personnel whose (lawful) work led to this result.

And to quote one of my favorites, Oscar Wilde:

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”

Thanks for going, OBL. It was more than time that you faced the consequences of your many murders.
posted by bearwife at 3:04 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

They cannot. Nor has it been shown the information itself came from torture.

Hard to say, since we know the United States is on record for torturing captives and submitting others to extraordinary rendition.

We don't know if the source or sources of information were tortured. There is a non-zero, significant, reasonable probability that torture happened.

Still, the ends justify the means and all. If torture led to OBL's death, there aren't that many who would disagree with Justice Scalia and Joel '24' Surnow that we aren't justified in torturing enemy combatants — even on the left. The Geneva Conventions are a quaint notion of how things were in pre-9/11 United States, anyway.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:07 PM on May 2, 2011

pracowity: "Hang on. Buried at sea? Are you guys serious? Why would you want to hide the body at the bottom of the sea before anyone could see it?"

How it probably went down.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:07 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I genuinely don't understand how this and this can be of the same Situation Room. They look very different in size.

I believe the first room is one of what they call a "secure video room" connected to the big main conference room.

Photo from 2006 renovation of one of these rooms.
posted by dhartung at 3:08 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

the helo stalled and they had to ditch it then blow it up. What a knife edge.

The failure of the Iran hostage rescue was in part down to mechanical failures. It is chilling, an O-ring here, a clogged filter there, how history teeters on these things.
posted by Danf at 3:08 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

They cannot. Nor has it been shown the information itself came from torture.

Hard to say, since we know the United States is on record for torturing captives and submitting others to extraordinary rendition.

We don't know if the source or sources of information were tortured. There is a non-zero, significant, reasonable probability that torture happened.

Still, the ends justify the means and all. If torture led to OBL's death, there aren't that many who would disagree with Justice Scalia and Joel '24' Surnow that we aren't justified in torturing enemy combatants — even on the left. The Geneva Conventions are a quaint notion of how things were in pre-9/11 United States, anyway.

see my multiple posts in between that one and yours where it is shown that the information did not come from torture.
posted by Ironmouth at 3:09 PM on May 2, 2011

see my multiple posts in between that one and yours where it is shown that the information did not come from torture.

It is true that KSM's information came from "standard" interrogations months after he had been waterboarded. However, before the waterboarding, KSM was uncooperative, demanding to speak with a lawyer. I'm unconvinced that the "standard" interrogations would have been at all successful had KSM not been "broken" by the waterboarding. I'm not defending waterboarding per se -- but you can't state that "standard" interrogations would have yielded the same outcome without the earlier waterboarding.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:15 PM on May 2, 2011

Based on the statements of several named CIA senior officials who spoke on record, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ron Suskind's book "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism" states that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter made to appear as a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, to Saddam Hussein and backdated to July 1, 2001. The White House also wanted the forged letter to state that Saddam was buying yellowcake from Niger with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization."

U.S. intelligence officials stated on the record that President Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. However, eager for "evidence" justifying war against Iraq, the White House ordered the manufacture of a letter stating that 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta had trained for his mission in Iraq, thus purporting to establish with finally the existence of an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda...

The 2005 release of the so-called Downing Street Memo, a secret British document summarizing a 2002 meeting among British political, intelligence, and defence leaders also tended to show the US and Britain willing to "fix" intelligence as necessary to support the war against Iraq. According to the memo, Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove claimed that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." ( source )

This has been common knowledge for some time. It was immediately suspect because it identified collusion between Iraq and al Qaeda and claimed Saddam was seeking nuclear weapons. It was a ballsy move, and the document was colossally inept to boot. The CIA is tragically incompetent, not because they are dumb, but because they are humans pretending that they can predict the future and affect the outcome positively and predictably with violence.
posted by notion at 3:15 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

cashman: how is my desk messier than his?

You probably don't have the army of staffers to go through all the stuff on your desk, distill out what's important, and file the rest for retrieval when you need it.
posted by localroger at 3:16 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pakistan, why are you squirming around so much?!

That's not funny.
posted by bardophile at 3:16 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

So you think it is a bad thing that President Obama has presided over an operation to bring bin Laden to justice?

What gives you that idea? I'm thrilled at the outcome, and congratulate the President and his team.

The accepting inconvenient truths thing. But I share your sentiments on the importance of this and in congratulating the President. He took a risk in being Carter II. His boldness helped us all.
posted by Ironmouth at 3:17 PM on May 2, 2011

What, like some underling isn't good enough with iMovie to make that happen?

these are the people who distributed posters of bin laden with a muppet looking over his shoulder.
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:18 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

From a Pakistani friend's Facebook wall:
I lived about a mile or so from the spot where OBL was killed today. My sister was born in that house (about a century ago!). It is a very real place. The ~30,000 people who have died in Pakistan in terror and drone attacks are also very real. That is why it is so confusing. Why it is painful and chokes me in my throat..

.

For all the innocent lives lost, everywhere.
posted by bardophile at 3:19 PM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Bin Laden hideout location challenges Pakistan credibility -- "US officials wonder how military missed compound in shadow of prestigious academy."
posted by ericb at 3:20 PM on May 2, 2011

If you think it's a good thing that President Obama has presided over a successful operation to take out the head of Al Qaeda, you need to accept a few inconvenient truths in the process.

I think a world without Osama bin Laden running around freely is a good thing. I don't imagine that indefinite detention, loss of privacy laws, destroying habeas corpus, starting several wars, or cutting out the public from a right to know a lot of things about our government was the only way, or even a particularly effective way to do that.

In the same sense, I think gynecology is a good thing. That doesn't necessitate that I also approve, or imagine that medical experimentation upon slaves was the only way, or even necessarily a good way, to develop that knowledge.

I don't think there's any inconvenient truths here, just a lot of disingenuous rationalizations for terrible deeds.
posted by yeloson at 3:20 PM on May 2, 2011 [10 favorites]

I think I've been reading the internet too long

Yeah, I'm at the point of looking at that SitRoom photo blowup and thinking, "Hillary's nails look nice. Ooh, look at her jewelry."

But better I post about Hill's braclet than my reaction to some of my fellow Lefties' and some non-USers' comments. (Although I would like to ask them what the weather is like up there in their Ivory Towers. And whether they've consulted a doctor about their inability to see anything except in black-and-white.)
posted by NorthernLite at 3:20 PM on May 2, 2011

Hey, regardless of what happens, can we make this thread go to over 5500 or so comments so that the Mefi post with the most comments ever isn't the frickin Sarah Palin thread?
posted by hellojed at 3:22 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Tea Party Nation: Obama Only Killed Bin Laden To Help His Reelection.

They're just mad because it'll work and their guys didn't try it first.
posted by quin at 3:22 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

(If you can read this you're spending too much time on your computer)
posted by Liquidwolf at 3:24 PM on May 2, 2011 [12 favorites]

you can't state that "standard" interrogations would have yielded the same outcome without the earlier waterboarding.

Nor can you state unequivocally that the earlier waterboarding is what led to the outcome.
posted by infinitywaltz at 3:24 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

She's not talking about OBL's house, but the one that she lived in, a mile or so from the place he was killed...
posted by bardophile at 3:26 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing about the operation that I keep thinking is that it was very very nearly a disaster -- the helo stalled and they had to ditch it then blow it up. What a knife edge.
posted by unSane

24 men do not four helos, this was factored in, not a knife edge. I would speculate half were heavy weapon squads to deal with anything from a helo to a tank.

this was a ghost op.
posted by clavdivs at 3:26 PM on May 2, 2011

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.

There is so much in this picture.

who the hell let dustin hoffman and monica lewinsky in there?
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:26 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm unconvinced that the "standard" interrogations would have been at all successful had KSM not been "broken" by the waterboarding.

What does it matter whether or not you're convinced? The info didn't come from torture, period.

We can't run an experiment to see if we would have gotten better or worse information with or without torture. The torture happened, so all information we got later would have come after it, and there's no way to know what effect it had.

---

Also Aaron Sorken annoys me. Sorkin made a TV show about the whitehouse, so of course the real whitehouse looks kind of like his TV show.
posted by delmoi at 3:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

BobbyVan writes "
The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

"'We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,' said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.
"
President Obama deserves tremendous credit for his courageous decision to embark on a risky assault on bin Laden's compound (instead of an easy drone attack). But as more information is disclosed about the provenance of the intelligence, credit must also be paid to former President Bush and the brave men and women of the CIA."

Notwithstanding the great wrong that is horrific amounts of torture inflicted on people with out trial or even representation and undoubtedly without the receiver even being guilty in some cases of more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time this mission proves nothing. Not only is a stopped clock right twice a day who knows what would have happened if the same resources had been expended in activities that aren't immoral. And it took them years to ferret out which is a pretty miserable result considering the information they claimed to have. The courier could have been hit by a bus 12 months ago and the torture would have amounted to nothing.

Justinian writes "This is all true but also misleading; The US wouldn't mount a military offensive on Canadian soil without so much as a heads up. There would be no need. Canada would waste bin Laden themselves if they had extremely time-limited actionable intelligence and assets in place. That's not so likely, though, so instead they'd pass along the info at the highest levels and cooperate fully."

Obviously the specifics are different but The US and Canada don't always agree on who needs to be brought to JUSTICE. For example the US has on several occasions mounted military operations in foreign countries to arrest/kidnap drug lords and Canada is way ahead of the US on legalization.

dhartung responds Mitheral:"Canada would be pretty pissed if the US up and mounted a military offensive on Canadian soil without even so much as a heads up before hand.

"*cough*"

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean. The NORAD Treaty doesn't give the US power to waltz into Canada when ever they want and kill it's residents. And the US Military is more than capable of mounting an operation within the boarders of Canada without consulting NORAD. Finally if they are already committed to invading a foreign nation it seems unlikely that the additional wrinkle of breaking a treaty would be much of a hindrance.
posted by Mitheral at 3:33 PM on May 2, 2011

Video of bin Laden's sea burial to be released?

"The at-sea burial of Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was videotaped and probably will be publicly released soon, two Pentagon officials said Monday.

The officials said photos of the body before its disposal in the North Arabian Sea on Monday also may be released. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because decisions on releasing the materials were pending.
It was not clear whether the firefight in which U.S. forces are said to have shot bin Laden to death was videotaped.

John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, told reporters that the administration was still deliberating on release of the material. Making it public might satisfy those who would otherwise doubt that it was bin Laden who was killed."

posted by ericb at 3:36 PM on May 2, 2011

Mitheral, the 1940 meeting was to co-ordinate covert operations against the axis, for the most, Stephenson was placed in charge and the u.s. used canada for personnel and logistic bases as the U.S. was not in the war, Canada was.
posted by clavdivs at 3:39 PM on May 2, 2011

Been listening to NPR all day, it's been really fascinating hearing the story over and over, watching it get firmer on facts as various things are confirmed or officials are spoken to. For instance, the question of whether it was kill or capture mission was said to have been a kill only mission and that was repeated multiple times throughout the day, by various reporters. But 15 minutes ago, it's now said it was kill or capture, but everyone figured it was going to be kill mission because Bin Laden wouldn't be taken alive. The fog of war indeed.

I look forward to Mark Bowden's book on this. The movie, not so much.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:40 PM on May 2, 2011

also, thanks for that Canada!
posted by clavdivs at 3:41 PM on May 2, 2011

So, who back in 2001 picked May 1, 2011 in the Bin Laden dead pool? With a black president? Anyone?

I was so close. I had May 1, 2012 and a Muslim president.

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.

That is a fantastic photograph. The amount of emotion that it captures is incredible.
posted by chemoboy at 3:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've been pondering the burial at sea thing, since I heard about it. Haven't heard specifically of Muslim burials at sea, although they must have happened, given how many seafaring Muslims there have been over the centuries.

On the one hand, the Wahhabis and Salafis are really opposed to shrines, even in the sense of marking a grave at all. There's a tradition that cemeteries are to be ploughed over after enough time has passed that the bones will have decayed. My own father's grave is unmarked, because he liked this idea. Probably the only thing that he agreed with the Wahhabis on. So if you look at the people who are most likely to lionize bin Laden, they SHOULD be unlikely to create a shrine. But they're notoriously inconsistent in their application of religious principles, so I don't think the fear was misplaced.

There is virtually no chance, to my mind, that people would begin to treat the Arabian Sea as some kind of shrine.
posted by bardophile at 3:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

see my multiple posts in between that one and yours where it is shown that the information did not come from torture.

Your defense is that we didn't torture this person this last time around?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this the latest Presidential press conference in history? I know that this is the biggest Presidential news in my life.

How did a nine year old get a credit card?
posted by clarknova at 3:58 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Probably just hacked PayPal like any other 9yo.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:01 PM on May 2, 2011

I love how in the picture Hillary's book is something like "TOP SECRET CODE WORDS"...and then something like.."FOR SITUATION ROOM ONLY"

TOP SECRET CODEWORD NOFORN
FOR USE IN WHITEHOUSE SITUATION ROOM ONLY

Since it was the top page, I expect it was a warning DON'T READ THIS UNLESS YOU'RE ALLOWED page. In this case, telling you that it's top secret, that you need a specific codeword clearance that isn't specified in that text, and that only foreign nationals aren't allowed to read it even if they have top secret clearance with the relevant codeword.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:06 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

EMRJKC94:

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

I know, I know, fair use under parody...
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:07 PM on May 2, 2011

Also, I thought the image was Tobias Funke's balls.
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:08 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I was away from the news yesterday so didn't read about this until this morning. As such I have spent a lot of today pondering the news and how I feel about it.

I think above all this was an inevitability, it was just a matter of time before Bin Laden was killed, in one manner or another.
I also think that it would have been impossible for him to receive a fair trial. I will admit to being a pretty big proponent of the arrest and trial method, but have the strong feeling that it would have largely been a show trial and that incarcerating him for the year/s that it would have taken to mount and execute a trial when the outcome was known, would have been years of attack and protest and festering emotion.
In some ways this is more of a symbolic victory then anything else, but that should not be completely dismissed as symbolic victory are still victories.
I certainly will not cry any tears of loss over what happened yesterday, but neither will I celebrate it.

As to the invading Pakistani space to carry this out vs. something like Canada. As mentioned up-thread it sounds like there is serious reservations on Pakistan's being an honest actor in this situation. It sounds likely, given Bin Laden's location and set up that if the Paki government was alerted they in turn would have altered Bin Laden, I don't think the same can be said for Canada.

Overall I think a quick, proper, disposal of the body was the best thing to do, else we would now be talking about where it is, what's happening to it, the desecration of the body and all manner of gruesome things of that nature.

There ultimately are no clear cut winners here, or in the war on terror or any violent conflict... just different levels of losing. It very well may have been necessary (and I kind of think it was), but it is a stain on the soul none the less.
posted by edgeways at 4:09 PM on May 2, 2011

I thought the top secret codeword was "noforn" but it only works in the situation room. Like, you can't social-engineer your way into the Pentagon by muttering "noforn" as you try to swish past the security guard.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:09 PM on May 2, 2011

noforn = No Foreign Nationals (according to Reddit)
posted by PenDevil at 4:10 PM on May 2, 2011

Mitheral, mainly that there are few militaries as closely integrated as the US and Canada's. There's a huge difference between an ally like Canada and a knife-edge ally-today-enemy-tomorrow like Pakistan. What it would take for us to consider Canada unwilling or unable to capture a war criminal on its soil I don't know, but it seems worlds away from consideration.

There is virtually no chance, to my mind, that people would begin to treat the Arabian Sea as some kind of shrine.

Indeed, some are speaking as if bin Laden were a religious figure akin to an Islamic prophet or saint. Although a significant minority of Muslims may see him as a hero, I doubt very many see him in that light.
posted by dhartung at 4:11 PM on May 2, 2011

Like, you can't social-engineer your way into the Pentagon by muttering "noforn" as you try to swish past the security guard.

Yeah, I already tried this. Who's got bail money?
posted by infinitywaltz at 4:12 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, like Reddit is a credible source.

I'm going to hedge my bets & start peppering my speech with "noforn" just in case it gives me some kind of insider benefits; it can't hurt. Noforn.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:13 PM on May 2, 2011

Here's the same image with the classified document enhanced

Okay, I had the exact same thought.

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

Everything published by the government is in the public domain, so that disclaimer has no actual legal weight (except maybe the endorsements thing)
posted by delmoi at 4:13 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

NOFORN and intelligence handling caveats.
posted by longbaugh at 4:15 PM on May 2, 2011

Yeah, like Reddit is a credible source. ... I'm going to hedge my bets & start peppering my speech with "noforn" just in case it gives me some kind of insider benefits; it can't hurt. Noforn.

It's a classification, like secret, top secret, classified. Noforn is the lowest level. This came out during the wikileaks thing, since most of the documents were not classified but just "noforn"
posted by delmoi at 4:15 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this the latest Presidential press conference in history?

I'm pretty sure Reagan announcing the invasion of Panama was later. I'm pretty sure he interrupted Letterman.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:15 PM on May 2, 2011

In "the picture" who is the fellow sitting down with the "secret service" keychain lanyard around his neck?

I lost a cousin in Afghanistan last year (Royal Marines), and so with a 10 year lag, in a roundabout way, in a country far from either of our births, the events of 9-11 have, indeed, touched our far-flung family personally. So I have no hesitation in saying that I am happy this misguided and hateful man is dead.
posted by Rumple at 4:15 PM on May 2, 2011

lupus_yonderboy: "But I've assumed Bin Laden was dead for years. If you recall, we had a spate of videos from him, and then a regular series of them around special occasions like elections. The last one was around 2006. In this, a grey-haired, tired looking Bin Laden starts to speak about generalities, and then the video freezes and a similar-sounding but not identical (to my ears) voice starts to speak about contemporaneous events. And after that, nothing.

So why would Bin Laden cease to make such videos if he were still alive? [...]

Now, Bin Laden was an old man with serious kidney troubles, and he certainly looked like that in the 2006 video. It seemed - and seems - very logical to me that he'd simply died, and that Al Qaeda had covered it up because it was of course in their best interests. None of this is really "evidence" - but then the US government isn't giving us any evidence at all, so what is a skeptical person supposed to do?"

Why would the United States fake Bin Laden's death after the fact now, as you're implying? If Obama wanted to buoy his re-election chances, he'd be far better off timing a fake operation closer to November 2012 (rather than May 2011) and rushing to release the news as soon as possible afterwards (rather than holding it back).
posted by Rhaomi at 4:16 PM on May 2, 2011

Fareed Zakaria's take: Al Qaeda is dead with OBL.
posted by bearwife at 4:17 PM on May 2, 2011

Yeah, like Reddit is a credible source

If there is one thing reddit knows it is anything to do with WikiLeaks or jargon you might see in a Tom Clancy game.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:17 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

I thought that photos taken by the Federal government were, if not classified or whatever, public domain.
posted by Flunkie at 4:21 PM on May 2, 2011

A lot of people are saying it was very near a failure, which may be true. But I assume that we would have never known about this operation if it was a failure (or not at least for a few years). There probably have been other failed attempts since Tora Bora as well.
posted by pollex at 4:26 PM on May 2, 2011

Miscellany:

1. Panetta was clearly promoted to SecDef because of his of orchestration of the bin Laden operation. I think that finding bin Laden was the hardest part, even though the actual infiltration and killing of bin Laden seems to be getting more press.

2. The perfect-storm hellfire that rained down on Trump I don't think was exactly coincidental. I'm pretty sure it was all a party of the Democratic machine showing that Obama plays hardball in politics, from the release of the Birth Certificate, to the Press Correspondence roast, to preempting Trumps t.v. show to announce the bin Laden death. You may be a millionaire, Trump, but this is how big boys play politics.

3. The recent reports that bin Laden was killed with a double tap admittedly frightens me. I have no doubt that the SEAL team are, in fact, the best at what they do.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

just curious, not attacking.. who is "a lot of people" ?
posted by edgeways at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2011

The usual anti-Americanism and conspirices are still flooding my Facebook wall. I'd feel better if I saw a body. Or part of a body. There was some native leader here who, when he was killed, they cut off his head and shipped it to Britain. Pretty savage, but bin Laden was an enemy of America....
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2011

"Everything published by the government is in the public domain, so that disclaimer has no actual legal weight (except maybe the endorsements thing)"

True, in regards to its prohibition on manipulation. If taken by a federal gov't employee, the photos are in the public domain and the gov't enjoys no copyright in them. However, the disclaimer also references trademark rights and rights of publicity. You can't take the photo and slap it on your billboard and say "Obama is behind our clothes."
posted by pollex at 4:29 PM on May 2, 2011

I assume that we would have never known about this operation if it was a failure (or not at least for a few years).

A crashed helicopter is easy to break, but it's difficult to remove evidence of.
posted by Flunkie at 4:30 PM on May 2, 2011

1. Panetta was clearly promoted to SecDef because of his of orchestration of the bin Laden operation. I think that finding bin Laden was the hardest part, even though the actual infiltration and killing of bin Laden seems to be getting more press.

Pure speculation.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:30 PM on May 2, 2011

clarknova: "Is this the latest Presidential press conference in history? I know that this is the biggest Presidential news in my life.

How did a nine year old get a credit card"

I am sorry if my grammar/wording wasn't 100% correct, it happens, English was never my strongest subject growing up. Or if you were commenting that President Bush press conference was a bigger deal than this was I can see your reasoning, however for me this is the most important Presidential press conference in my life, it restored faith and showed me that we didn't forget about those who died on 9/11. And despite all the jokes I have heard about the US and being ridiculed for being an American, we can accomplish something we set out to do. Yes, this out ranks the one on September 11th because this means more to me, now I fully understand what happened and what is currently going on. It might not to you, but it does to me.

And to answer your question, I was 21 not 9 when I signed up for this site, so I got it by opening my own bank account.
posted by lilkeith07 at 4:30 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Robert Fisk: Was he betrayed? Of course. Pakistan knew Bin Laden's hiding place all along

Of course, there is one more obvious question unanswered: couldn't they have captured Bin Laden? Didn't the CIA or the Navy Seals or the US Special Forces or whatever American outfit killed him have the means to throw a net over the tiger? "Justice," Barack Obama called his death. In the old days, of course, "justice" meant due process, a court, a hearing, a defence, a trial. Like the sons of Saddam, Bin Laden was gunned down. Sure, he never wanted to be taken alive – and there were buckets of blood in the room in which he died.

But a court would have worried more people than Bin Laden. After all, he might have talked about his contacts with the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, or about his cosy meetings in Islamabad with Prince Turki, Saudi Arabia's head of intelligence. Just as Saddam – who was tried for the murder of a mere 153 people rather than thousands of gassed Kurds – was hanged before he had the chance to tell us about the gas components that came from America, his friendship with Donald Rumsfeld, the US military assistance he received when he invaded Iran in 1980.

posted by gman at 4:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

from the release of the Birth Certificate, to the Press Correspondence roast, to preempting Trumps t.v. show to announce the bin Laden death. You may be a millionaire, Trump, but this is how big boys play politics.

I actually think someone at NBC just had a sense of humor. Apparently it the show was interrupted right when he was about to make a decision on firing someone.

However, the actual announcement didn't happen for hours and the news was blowing up on the web anyway.
posted by delmoi at 4:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

In "the picture" who is the fellow sitting down with the "secret service" keychain lanyard around his neck?

DNSC Denis McDonough
posted by clavdivs at 4:33 PM on May 2, 2011

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but to tone down the "why did we just kill him instead of capturing him" and "where is the body he's not dead" things:

Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan says: The mission was to capture or to kill, capture being favored, but not at the cost of losing American lives, and they are slowly processing all the materials they have from the compound as well as evidence that it was Osama and he is dead, and will be making decisions about releasing them soon, and they want us to have as much proof as possible that he really is dead.

Also, idk, maybe some people should READ THE PRESS BRIEFINGS before complaining about what we do and do not know from our government. And also keep in mind before WILD SPECULATION that it's been not so long since this happened to expect full disclosure (or even comprehension) of all the data gathered.
posted by nile_red at 4:34 PM on May 2, 2011

Whitehouse Flickr shot of staff reaction to the raid video stream.

Hope it's not already posted. 2k comments is tough to scan.
posted by yoga at 4:34 PM on May 2, 2011

I actually think someone at NBC just had a sense of humor. Apparently it the show was interrupted right when he was about to make a decision on firing someone.

However, the actual announcement didn't happen for hours and the news was blowing up on the web anyway.

I don't know about that. The White House announced a specific time; that time came and went. Even the feed on whitehouse.gov just said something like "President to address nation at 10:30 Eastern" at something like 11:00 Eastern.

I think it's more likely that NBC assumed, like everybody else, that when the White House said 10:30, they meant 10:30.
posted by Flunkie at 4:35 PM on May 2, 2011

yoga: "Whitehouse Flickr shot of staff reaction to the raid video stream.

Hope it's not already posted. 2k comments is tough to scan."

this is inappropriate but the pixelated document in front of Hillary looks like porn...mostly because it's been pixelated.
posted by nile_red at 4:36 PM on May 2, 2011

my, hilary looks agahst. I wonder if that was when the helo keeled
posted by clavdivs at 4:36 PM on May 2, 2011

dhartung writes "Mitheral, mainly that there are few militaries as closely integrated as the US and Canada's. There's a huge difference between an ally like Canada and a knife-edge ally-today-enemy-tomorrow like Pakistan. What it would take for us to consider Canada unwilling or unable to capture a war criminal on its soil I don't know, but it seems worlds away from consideration."

Agree. I was speculating that if I was a Pakistani I'd be pissed that the US went cowboy in my country by projecting how I'd and many other Canadians I'm sure would feel if they did the same to us. Also there is a lot of low level fear that the US has gone off the rails lately projecting their power around the world. For example requiring passengers on airplanes merely transiting US airspace but not landing in the US to undergo US level security checks.

jabberjaw writes "The perfect-storm hellfire that rained down on Trump I don't think was exactly coincidental. I'm pretty sure it was all a party of the Democratic machine showing that Obama plays hardball in politics, [..] to preempting Trumps t.v. show to announce the bin Laden death."

Hard to believe they would have been ill prepared with the speech or whatever caused the delay if this was an elaborate play to set up Trump. Though maybe someone knew they wouldn't be ready at the specified time but saw a chance to stick it to Trump.

Flunkie writes "A crashed helicopter is easy to break, but it's difficult to remove evidence of."

The cover story pretty well writes itself: Blah Blah Blah, training accident, blah blah, war zone, blah blah foo killed, blah blah.
posted by Mitheral at 4:36 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

John Ringo predicted this
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:36 PM on May 2, 2011

jabberjaw: 3. The recent reports that bin Laden was killed with a double tap admittedly frightens me. I have no doubt that the SEAL team are, in fact, the best at what they do.

I'm not entirely clear on what is frightening you here. Is it the use of "double tap" that concerns you, or that the SEAL team utilized it?
posted by CancerMan at 4:37 PM on May 2, 2011

I believe it is high res shot of the compound or something Bob Gates found in a steamer trunk.
posted by clavdivs at 4:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

This came out during the wikileaks thing, since most of the documents were not classified but just 'noforn'

I've known about "noforn" since it was reported in 2004 that Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave Prince Bandar bin Sultan (AKA "Bandar Bush") a sneak peek at the plans for invading Iraq before the invasion.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:38 PM on May 2, 2011

I was speculating that if I was a Pakistani I'd be pissed that the US went cowboy in my country

We've had a lot of time to get used to that feeling. The reactions from most of the people I know are resigned, and more aggrieved about the drone attacks than the US having taken out Osama bin Laden.
posted by bardophile at 4:40 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A crashed helicopter is easy to break, but it's difficult to remove evidence of.
The cover story pretty well writes itself: Blah Blah Blah, training accident, blah blah, war zone, blah blah foo killed, blah blah.

A "training accident" a hundred miles deep into Pakistan?
posted by Flunkie at 4:40 PM on May 2, 2011

DNSC Denis McDonough

Thanks, clavdivs
posted by Rumple at 4:40 PM on May 2, 2011

In the old days, of course, "justice" meant due process, a court, a hearing, a defence, a trial.

Oh, fuck off Fisk. Justice is not dependent on the murderer voluntarily surrendering. Sometimes when you are being shot at, you have to shoot back.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:40 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

correction, it is a tripoli board with no trump.
posted by clavdivs at 4:40 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that photograph is just documentation of the Sitchies' reaction to Two Girls, One Cup.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:43 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sys Rq: "I'm pretty sure that photograph is just documentation of the Sitchies' reaction to Two Girls, One Cup"

That would explain Biden's look of mild interest.
posted by brundlefly at 4:47 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

National Counterterrorism Center: How A Little-Known Spy Agency Helped Track Down Osama Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 4:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Phone Call That Led U.S. To Bin Laden's Doorstep.
posted by ericb at 4:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Limbaugh Laughs At Media Who Report That He Lavished Praise On Obama Over Bin Laden Killing
posted by delmoi at 4:49 PM on May 2, 2011

I was speculating that if I was a Pakistani I'd be pissed that the US went cowboy in my country

The thing is, the US wouldn't need to act unilaterally if Pakistan, including the intelligence services and (to a lesser extent) the military weren't half overrun by radicals. Remember, sheltering bin Laden was why the US invaded Afghanistan. If Pakistan was unwilling or unable to deal with bin Laden the same justification existed. On a practical level it would be crazy pants to launch an invasion of a nation of 180 million people and which possesses nuclear weapons. But harboring bin Laden would be a clear and unequivocal casus belli.

So here's the choice: act unilaterally and take out bin Laden or go to Pakistan and ask for cooperation. If Pakistan refuses (wont happen) or agrees half-heartedly and someone tips off bin Laden (as seems assured) you're left with a giant pile of shit. You let bin Laden get away and wasted years of work and you've got Pakistan harboring terrorists, including bin Laden, in exactly the way that Afghanistan did. Now what? The crazy pants invasion scenario? Ridiculous. But you can't let it go. So what do you do? You're pretty much screwed.

Sometimes it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
posted by Justinian at 4:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

How Obama Succeeded Where Bush Failed -- Again And Again.
posted by ericb at 4:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Rumsfeld: Bin Laden Info From Gitmo Detainees Was Not Obtained Through ‘Harsh Treatment’ Or ‘Waterboarding’.
posted by ericb at 4:51 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Justice is not dependent on the murderer voluntarily surrendering.

I actually wondered about the phrase, too. As in, he's been "brought to justice"- by shooting him in the head. Frankly, I don't think this resolution counts as "bringing him to justice"- Osama's dead, but he didn't face trial, and I tend to assume bringing someone to justice means you've put them on trail. So if I kill a murderer, he's not been brought to justice even if he did deserve it.

Googling the phrase "bring to justice", I found:

bring to justice: to capture, try, and usually punish (a criminal, an outlaw, etc.)
- The Free Dictionary

bring to justice: to punish someone for a crime
- The Free Dictionary

Definition: put on trial
- thesaurus.com

Most often, the terms brought to trial, bring to trial, brought to justice and bring to justice refer to the prosecution at trial of alleged war criminals and political prisoners, as well as those accused of treason or misprision of treason, sexual assault, and other infamous crimes.
- Wikipedia

posted by BungaDunga at 4:53 PM on May 2, 2011

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94: Oh, fuck off Fisk. Justice is not dependent on the murderer voluntarily surrendering. Sometimes when you are being shot at, you have to shoot back.

While I might not agree with everything Fisk said, I'm really curious why we have any reason to believe the narrative which the US administration is putting out there with regard to how this all went down? Much like putting Saddam Hussein on trial for the gassing of the Kurds, the US had a lot to fear from a potential Bin Laden trial.
posted by gman at 4:54 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Rumsfeld: Bin Laden Info From Gitmo Detainees Was Not Obtained Through ‘Harsh Treatment’ Or ‘Waterboarding’.

Just a question: How the fuck would Rumsfeld know? Isn't he just some schmoe on the outside like the rest of us?
posted by Sys Rq at 4:55 PM on May 2, 2011

I haven't really heard very much about any reactions from the Islamic world. Does anyone know?
posted by Flunkie at 4:57 PM on May 2, 2011

The demands for physical evidence, like a photo of Obama's shot face, are a little strange. If the US is going to lie about killing Obama, then it would be trivial for the US to fake a photograph. Absolutely trivial.

No, the best proof we can get is confirmation from Al Qaeda sources that OBL is, indeed, dead. We've got one "hit" on this score from that AFP article. I'm looking forward to more.

Just as when Saddam was captured, that could have been an actor for all we knew. However, we knew from how the Baathists and the rest of Iraq acted - and also from the fact that no one came from the woodwork claiming to be the "real" Saddam - that it was, indeed, the real Saddam.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just a question: How the fuck would Rumsfeld know? Isn't he just some schmoe on the outside like the rest of us?

Are you suggesting that harsh interrogation techniques are still being used, without his knowledge? He would know because he saw all the data that was acquired that way. And plus these guys all know people who know this stuff (which is why a conspiracy to fake this would be impossible)
posted by delmoi at 4:58 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"While I might not agree with everything Fisk said, I'm really curious why we have any reason to believe the narrative which the US administration is putting out there with regard to how this all went down? Much like putting Saddam Hussein on trial for the gassing of the Kurds, the US had a lot to fear from a potential Bin Laden trial."

I don't feel like we have to believe or disbelieve any narrative...but I feel like it's WAY too soon to make decisions based on information that according to press releases will be provided soon but isn't out yet.
posted by nile_red at 4:58 PM on May 2, 2011

Much like putting Saddam Hussein on trial for the gassing of the Kurds, the US had a lot to fear from a potential Bin Laden trial.

Quite true. Our CIA did train and equip him, after all.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:59 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The demands for physical evidence, like a photo of Obama's shot face, are a little strange. If the US is going to lie about killing Obama, then it would be trivial for the US to fake a photograph. Absolutely trivial.

Amazing how many people are making that mistake in this thread.
posted by delmoi at 4:59 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

A Navy Seal told me what really happened. Well, not really a Navy Seal, but a seal at the zoo. Nevertheless, the actual events of what happened will put a chill down the spine of any and all freedom loving real Americans. Obama tried to get UBL, but of course, Obama retreated and admitted defeat before we could actually take UBL out. Obama announced that he killed UBL but was then afraid that UBL would blow the lid off this big lie, so get this, Obama had UBL rubbed out to prevent him from exposing Obama's lie! Tell all your freedom loving real Americans what really happened! Otherwise this will happen to you!
posted by NoMich at 5:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Amazing how many people are making that mistake in this thread.

Heck, I've been making that mistake in conversation sporadically, and I think it's just a measure of how little anybody has thought about Osama Bin Laden.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:02 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

... I mean, how little anybody has thought about or discussed Bin Laden in the past few years, not counting the last day and a bit, of course.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:04 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, so Rush Limbaugh was being ultra-sarcastic with the "praise god for obama" thing. Jackass. In other right wing news, I swear I just heard o'reilly say Bin Laden's sea burial was in the Aegean Sea. But I don't see that anywhere at all, so I must have misheard.
posted by cashman at 5:12 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm really curious why we have any reason to believe the narrative which the US administration is putting out there with regard to how this all went down? Much like putting Saddam Hussein on trial for the gassing of the Kurds, the US had a lot to fear from a potential Bin Laden trial.

The administration's description of the operation as an attempt to capture or kill bin Laden is entirely plausible, and we should have some evidence against it before we start saying that "this was not justice". Indeed, in the same paragraph Fisk he acknowledges that bin Laden was unwilling to be captured alive. Yet he still seeks to imply that bin Laden was automatically gunned down because the Americans were terrified of the scandalous things he would reveal at trial, things which Fisk and indeed everyone with a cursory interest are already aware of. Bin Laden isn't known for keeping his mouth shut to benefit American interests.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:19 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I find it strange that Bin Laden took a son all the way to the UK for medical treatment of hydrocephalus, then went home and fed him honey instead.

Wives and their children:

Wife #1 = Najwa Ghanem, 1974, age 14. Unusually tall. "Quite beautiful." {90} "Umm Abdullah" {92}. Jealous {287}. Left around 2001 {382}.
11 children {92} {382}
#1 = Abdullah, born 1978 {92}, whereupon bin Laden becomes "Abu Abdullah" {92}. Suffers from asthma since childhood {219}.
Second son, Abdul Rahman, was born with hydrocephalus. OBL took the baby to the UK for treatment, but declined to have shunt placed. Instead, he returned to Saudi Arabia and treated the condition with honey (a folk remedy). The boy ultimately became mildly retarded. {92-93} {221}
Oldest daughter, Fatima, born 1983. "... fun, but a little slow." {285}.
Wife #2 = Umm Hamza, from Sabar family in Jeddah {94}. Seven years older than OBL {286}. Frequent miscarriages. Weak eyes. Frail {286}.
One child {286}, a son {94} {286}. Son is named Hamza. 12 years old circa 2001. Long black eyelashes, his father's thin face {377}
Wife #3 = Umm Khaled {285}
daughter Khadija, born 1986 {285}. "Very very bright" {286}
Wife #4 = Umm Ali {94}. Asks for divorce 1994 {221}.
Wife #5 = Amal al-Sada, circa 2001, age 15, a Yemeni {382}

posted by Brian B. at 5:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"you had the royal wedding and we have this"
posted by Scoo at 5:23 PM on May 2, 2011

There's a tacit assumption that some folks seem to be making, here and in public: That the informant who initially identified bin Laden's courier, did so under torture.

If I have the time frame correct (2004), he did not. By that time, at Gitmo, they were primarily using standard interrogation techniques, which are quite good at getting that kind of important but superficially unspectacular intelligence.
posted by lodurr at 5:24 PM on May 2, 2011

Just a question: How the fuck would Rumsfeld know? Isn't he just some schmoe on the outside like the rest of us?

I don't know how much your security clearance drops after you've been Secretary of Defense, if it does at all. It's quite possible he was consulted on the matter of finding bin Laden.
posted by chemoboy at 5:24 PM on May 2, 2011

?how i can parse
posted by ReWayne at 5:26 PM on May 2, 2011

eric b: Right Rushes To Praise Bush For Obama’s Order To Kill Bin Laden.

Ah--the inarguable, inevitable "pickle jar" defense... the only conceivable reason Obama got it open is that W must have loosened it up for him.
posted by rodeoclown at 5:28 PM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

It seems like a bunch of comments here are just assumptions based on information that could be found by searching...
posted by nile_red at 5:31 PM on May 2, 2011

The tensest moment for those watching, he said, came when one of two helicopters that flew the American troops into the compound broke down, stalling as it flew over the 18-foot wall of the compound and prepared to land. The team blew it up and called in one of two backups. In all, 79 commandos and a dog were involved in the raid.

Never let a dog fly a helicopter.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:32 PM on May 2, 2011 [34 favorites]

I seriously doubt anyone in DC would consult Rummy on anything. The man is despised.
posted by humanfont at 5:32 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ah--the inarguable, inevitable "pickle jar" defense... the only conceivable reason Obama got it open is that W must have loosened it up for him.

Unfortunately for everybody, "righty tighty, lefty loosey" meant Bush was just screwing that old pickle jar tighter for 8 years. Well, of course, that wasn't the only thing he was screwing...
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:32 PM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Rumsfeld would know if torture was being used because he approved the torture -- er, harsh interrogation -- regimes in the first place. He was also in charge when they were relaxed, which, again, if I recall correctly, for Gitmo was prior to 2004. (This leaves aside for the moment the question of whether Rumsfeld has gotten around to accepting that 'torture' ever happened in the first place.)

Again, this kind of information is not the kind of information you get via torture, because it's mundane: people being tortured don't offer you up the name of bin Laden's most trusted courier, and people doing torturing aren't looking for something that boring. However, people being interrogated often give up that kind of information, and professional interrogators tend to know the value of mundane information (and anyway, it's all getting taped and transcribed and analyzed).

So, if anyone tells you this was a victory for torture -- I suggest you look for some documentation on that.
posted by lodurr at 5:35 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've been reading Facebook conversations, and eavesdropping on people talking as I've been working on a paper in the library today (a bad habit, certainly, but also sometimes useful). I've also been following most of the discussion here, and there's something that's struck me:

I view this whole event as a sort of mixed bag. I'm happy that someone who did major harm to my country has been brought to justice, and I'm happy in the way that Obama has handled the situation. But, at the same time, I'm unhappy that torture was likely used to gain the information that lead to these results. I'm unhappy that we had to wait ten years, and two wars (which aren't yet finished, and are only tangentially related to the matter at hand) to get to this point. I'm unhappy with the way that my countrymen reacted to the news, and I'm (as ever) unhappy with the way my media covered it. It's a complicated emotion that doesn't neatly fit into any one category, and it's tinged with a tired resignation that I've been feeling ever since 2001 when I watched on TV as a cloud of debris engulfed Manhattan.

But what strikes me most is that I can't express this to anyone outside the relative anonymity of the Internet. The conversation has been so flattened in this country by the wartime atmosphere that I feel like I can't express a nuanced opinion without being labeled a jingo on one side or a traitor on another. It feels as though I've been living under constant threat for so long that this doesn't even strike me as peculiar: every single event seems accelerated to a point of meaningless as it plays out ad nauseum on the Internet and television. Modern life is constant and exhausting, and leaves no room for subtleties, or at least that's my impression after 10 years of watching terrible things happen and then watching people yell at one another about it. Perhaps this has always been the way, and the increased capability for voyeurship through our screen-moderated lives has just made it more apparent. All of this time spent following the discussion of horrible events... what does it even accomplish?

Maybe I need to take a news-break, like that FPP a few days ago suggested. I'm being exhausted by things I can't really change.
posted by codacorolla at 5:54 PM on May 2, 2011 [22 favorites]

Our CIA did train and equip him, after all.

That just isn't true. He was at best a bag man for the Saudi royal family (at worst a runaway and troublemaker they hoped would die in battle) and interacted with the same muj crowd we were training and equipping, but started AQ on his own after we closed down that operation due to the Soviet departure. During our involvement, he was too young to have been a significant figure. Most of the al Qaeda insiders, such as al-Zawahiri and al-Azzam, were incensed that the Afghan Arabs were excluded from the normal support channels. The ISI general who managed contacts with the muj was consistently frustrated that the CIA sought out secular, non-Islamist leaders to fund rather than the Islamists who were in his view more committed and effective. President Zia insisted that the muj work together in an integrated structure, and it was this structure outside which bin Laden later freelanced. We certainly did nothing to set him up in this role; we had abandoned any interest in the country.

Panetta was clearly promoted to SecDef because of his of orchestration of the bin Laden operation.

Your "clearly" is rather muddy. Gates has wanted to retire this year or thereabouts since taking the job (for Obama), and officially announced his retirement last August. If anything, Panetta was put into the CIA job to gain national security experience that would allow his later promotion to SecDef -- the first true Democrat to hold the job since Les Aspin. Say what you will about Obama, but this was a beautifully played long game; the Dems had practically permanently ceded to Republicans the whole defense apparatus.
posted by dhartung at 5:54 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

May as well throw a post in an epic thread. . .

I'm not conflicted exactly. Mostly I feel hopeful that this is going to allow the U.S. to psychologically close a chapter in our history, and that drawing down our forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan is going to become more palatable to more people here, and maybe those timetables will speed up. I also think it can help open useful conversations about what these last ten years have been all about, exactly, in terms of our counter-terrorism strategies, and whether we might want to re-evaluate some of it before the next Bin Laden appears.

What I keep coming back to, though, is that it's so odd, that given all the things Bin Laden could have been doing all this time, all the places he could have been, we ended up actually getting ahold of him after all. Hiding in a wealthy neighborhood, in a populous city, for how long? Could he have done it without some kind of help, or at least cover, from the ISI? Could they have missed him, right under their noses, for years?

We may never now. My gut instinct is that someone fairly high up in Pakistan decided it was time to give him up. Why now? Maybe we'll find out soon, maybe not.

To me there's something very Ruby / Oswald about today, not in the sense of conspiracies, but in the sense that we have experienced a moment that is going to resonate off the walls of our culture for a long, long time.
posted by chaff at 6:08 PM on May 2, 2011

I can't do any flag waiving today. Too much has been sacrificed in the name of 9/11. I am happy he's finally dead, but it's not a celebrating moment for me. I wish I did believe this will get Obama re-elected, but I don't.
posted by xammerboy at 6:15 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

But, at the same time, I'm unhappy that torture was likely used to gain the information that lead to these results.

torture loves maybe be trying to spin it that way but it does not appear to be the case. The information was actually acquired after torture was no longer being used.
posted by delmoi at 6:17 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Barring a Huey Long "live boy or dead girl" situation, Obama will get re-elected. Nobody can get the GOP nomination without pandering to the crazies, and nobody who panders that much to the crazies will be able to win the general. This was true even before last night.
posted by localroger at 6:17 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Justinian writes "So here's the choice: act unilaterally and take out bin Laden or go to Pakistan and ask for cooperation. If Pakistan refuses (wont happen) or agrees half-heartedly and someone tips off bin Laden (as seems assured) you're left with a giant pile of shit. You let bin Laden get away and wasted years of work and you've got Pakistan harboring terrorists, including bin Laden, in exactly the way that Afghanistan did. Now what? The crazy pants invasion scenario? Ridiculous. But you can't let it go. So what do you do? You're pretty much screwed.

I don't disagree with your assessment of the rock and the hard place.

"Sometimes it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission."

However justified you are seeking forgiveness and the victims are still going to feel pissed.
posted by Mitheral at 6:18 PM on May 2, 2011

"Sometimes it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission."

Seems slightly inappropriate to bandy this cliche around when we're discussing a nuclear state.
posted by outlaw of averages at 6:19 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

torture loves maybe be trying to spin it that way but it does not appear to be the case. The information was actually acquired after torture was no longer being used.

Thank you for clearing that up, at least.
posted by codacorolla at 6:19 PM on May 2, 2011

Barring a Huey Long "live boy or dead girl" situation, Obama will get re-elected. Nobody can get the GOP nomination without pandering to the crazies, and nobody who panders that much to the crazies will be able to win the general. This was true even before last night.

These kind of victories don't translate into election stuff that well. Bush I won the gulf war, then got killed due to the economy. People said Bush II would win for sure after he got Saddam but by the time the election came around the war was more of a liability then anything. Kerry could have won if he wasn't an idiot.
posted by delmoi at 6:20 PM on May 2, 2011

What am I supposed to do with the souvenir t-shirt of a crosshair over OBL's head and "AMERICA'S #1 MOST WANTED" on it? It would just be tacky to wear it now.

Maybe you should buy a new one?
posted by chemoboy at 6:23 PM on May 2, 2011

Oh, but I was going to add, that this is actually probably a much bigger deal for people then the capture of Saddam. And it's going to be hard for the republicans to attack Obama, at least for a couple weeks. This will definitely help him, but it's not going win him the election on it's own.

If Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty get the nomination there could be a contest.
posted by delmoi at 6:23 PM on May 2, 2011

Obama did not need this victory to win re-election. If he doesn't get caught with a gay hooker he has it sown up mainly because he will be facing someone like Trump or Palin in the general, and anybody sane will hold their nose if they have to and vote for him.

I have some experience with this, having lived through "Vote for the crook, it's important." (David Duke in the Louisiana governor's race.) With the fine folks in WI showing us just how crazy the crazies are, I think the independents and wishy-washy Dems will show up and do the right thing for the same reason I voted for Edwards that year.
posted by localroger at 6:23 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I've read hundreds of comments and am still a couple hundred behind, so forgive me if this has been discussed. In response to:

This takedown vindicates John Kerry's position during the 2004 election that the War on Terror is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world." Intelligence-gathering following by a super-sized SWAT team took bin Laden down.

I agree. But is it not also a vindication of the war strategy, which brought in the "enemy combatants" or whatever they were who tipped off investigators about the courier? Seems like there are kudos to go around. The military operations bookended the CIA investigation that located OBL, but the law enforcement option alone didn't get this done. The info from the detainee at Gitmo was critical.

I'm pretty impressed with the whole operation, start to finish. Perhaps that's naive. (Also I'm very glad it finished under Obama's watch.)
posted by torticat at 6:30 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A witness account of Bin Laden's death

View of the OBL compound neighborhood

I Am From Abbottabad That Makes Me A Million Times Better Than You

Photos of departing Abbottabad with the old District Cantonment Police Station down the road from the OBL compound

Route between Osama Bin Laden's place in Abbottabad and Jalalabad, Afghanistan

Wondering if Naseer Ahmed Roohi and the Roohi Tabsamm Clinic across the street from Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad had any connection.
posted by nickyskye at 6:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Donald Trump is still free, however.
posted by unSane at 6:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

The Hitler/Osama coincidence is interesting. Obama better hope that there isn't a Churchill/Obama parallel as well, or things don't bode well for his re-election.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 6:40 PM on May 2, 2011

Since OBL voluntarily isolated himself and was obviously not directing Al Qaeda operations after his escape from Afghanistan, keeping 30 CIA guys busy hunting him personally probably wasn't the best use of their time. Better to have them focus on Al Qaeda writ large, and keep an eye out for OBL, rather than make one big fish their singular focus. I won't second guess that decision, especially with ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yes, I believe that was the thinking. The strategy backfired in some ways, spawning new AQ groups (such as AQ in Iraq) instead of getting the people actually responsible for 9/11. (Not to mention the massive expense of life and resources in Iraq, which was a tragic mistake on its own and a major distraction.)

A friend sent me this link to a Weekly Standard article about the Bush strategy from several years back. It's interesting and reinforces the idea that getting OBL was not Bush's top priority. Still and all, had Bush gone for OBL he would have been accused of being on a cowboy vendetta just as with Saddam Hussein, obsessed with a symbolic victory over an increasingly irrelevant villain. Obama had the credibility to get this job done, and I'm glad he was the one who did it.

Okay, going back to catch up on comments now.
posted by torticat at 6:43 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

According to the Pentagon he was identified by name by one of his own wives. As the raiding party closed in on the last unsecured room in the compound, Bin Laden, who according to the White House had no weapon, was shot dead.

US officials say – and there is no independent verification of this fact – he was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head. "Done in by a double tap – boom boom – to the left side of his face," wrote Marc Ambinder of the National Journal, a beltway insider's journal. Word of the kill went up the chain of command. Thousands of miles away, at the CIA in Virginia and at the White House, cheers erupted.

Obviously I was way out of line by daring to suggest that Osama had been 'executed'.
posted by Flashman at 6:47 PM on May 2, 2011

That's just shit reporting: "...shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head." then "...double tap -- to the left side of his face."

Which is it?
posted by Shike at 6:52 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also "according to the White House [Bin Laden] had no weapon" is directly contradicted by other statements from the White House above. Not really sure how to take that.
posted by penduluum at 6:55 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Though it is all speculation, I would be shocked if by the time they got to him UBL wasn't armed.
posted by rosswald at 6:56 PM on May 2, 2011

That's just shit reporting: "...shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head." then "...double tap -- to the left side of his face."

Which is it?

Both. He was a heartless, two-faced son of a bitch. With anatomy like that, you get a twofer.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:56 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

cashman: "Oh, so Rush Limbaugh was being ultra-sarcastic with the "praise god for obama" thing. Jackass. In other right wing news, I swear I just heard o'reilly say Bin Laden's sea burial was in the Aegean Sea. But I don't see that anywhere at all, so I must have misheard"

Tide goes out, USAma washes in... Can't explain that!
posted by symbioid at 6:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Astro Zombie: "Sorry for what?

I just like to apologize."

What are you, Canadian?
posted by bwg at 6:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

From the WH official: "Finally, shortly before 2 a.m. in Pakistan, the commandos burst into an upstairs room. Inside, an armed bin Laden took cover behind one of his wives, Brennan said. With a burst of gunfire, one of the longest and costliest manhunts in modern history was over."
posted by Shike at 6:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

A special word from Keith Olberman.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:58 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Look at hillarys face, she is choking on the cannoli there. He was plain whacked, kilt, smoked, rolled up and pushed out to sea.
That man attacked my country for over 15 years. When OBL moved to Afghanistan I followed him in the news as much as there was but paid particular interest in Massoud.
IMO, this is the warning sign to 9/11 (an attack). It freaked me out. Why, the leadership seemed to delay the announcement so as to take a defensive posture which means an offensive may come. Now this may seem insular but he was the last to mount a serious threat to the Taliban. They risked much to take out a man they really did not need too kill, why. Because if he had lived, the Taliban’s existence would have been more short lived and there would be no one on one with ISI if massoud is in charge. I doubt Massoud would have a major political figure, perhaps. He would have been the man to have to finish off bin laden. Why, because he led us to OBL before (thanks Sandy you asshat) and OBL knew this. Massoud was a threat to their security and post operational (9-11) capacity.
posted by clavdivs at 6:58 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So...

I'm curious as to whether this will strengthen Zardari vis a vis the ISI, such that he gets leverage against it... or whether it will weaken him.

The burial at sea bit strikes me as idiotic-- if the administration is planning some zany last-minute PR coup ("Yes, some of you thought this was fake... but now, on November 4th, here's the REAL evidence!")-- well, that's not a good plan. The more likely explanation, that the administration genuinely believes in the importance of not having his gravesite as a gathering point, is, well, a sufficient explanation of an insufficient reason. Expect poor Alex Jones to burn through countless bottles of antacid, trying to divine why there's no corpse to see.

In all seriousness, far better that OBL's head be on a pike, in the Rose Garden. Just as everyone understands that this was a hit, not a capture operation gone wrong, everyone understands that bin Laden, as an individual, is someone for whom the ordinary rules don't really obtain. I suspect that world opinion, for what it's worth, would more or less condone Geneva-violating display of OBL's corpse, if only with the thought that, "Well, if they put his skull in the public square, maybe the Americans can get this out of their system, and finally go home."

I nurse the faint hope that sometime after 2012 (no chance of this happening earlier), Obama might actually ratchet down our new security state somewhat... but, to be honest, this is very, very unlikely.

At any rate, bin Laden's dead. Maybe it was via double-taps to the face, as we're being told; maybe it was via less glamorous bomb or missile a week ago, but it doesn't matter. No doubt messy things happened and will happen, but still, this is a Good Thing.
posted by darth_tedious at 7:01 PM on May 2, 2011

Alternatively, and directly from the Whitehouse:

Q You said that Osama bin Laden was actually involved in the firefight, and we had -- it has been reported that he reached for a weapon. Did he get his hand on a gun and did he fire himself?

MR. BRENNAN: He was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in. And whether or not he got off any rounds, I quite frankly don’t know.

I don't think he said anything else directly to the question of whether or not he had a gun. If there's more from the Whitehouse I haven't seen it.
posted by polyhedron at 7:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

From a linked article:

The Navy SEAL commandos picked for the mission had trained for weeks, practicing daily at a such a precise replica of the compound that they came to know every wall and external feature, as well as where every occupant was likely to be found. The rehearsals also covered a range of scenarios, including the possibility that bin Laden would try to surrender. So the SEAL team members practiced how to take him prisoner, according a military official briefed on the plan. Using Arabic commands, the insertion team would offer bin Laden a chance to give up, and would fire only if he resisted.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Not that it bothers me in the slightest, but why do I hear finger quotes when reading the words "give up" and "resisted"?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:06 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm curious as to whether this will strengthen Zardari vis a vis the ISI, such that he gets leverage against it... or whether it will weaken him.

Depends if Victor Newman gets the new Litium contract.
posted by clavdivs at 7:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The one thing that keeps bothering me in this is the death of the wife bin Laden used as a human shield. There must have been a way to get him without killing her.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:09 PM on May 2, 2011

Not that it bothers me in the slightest, but why do I hear finger quotes when reading the words "give up" and "resisted"?

FWIW, I bet neither side would have wanted to deal with a capture situation. The US wouldn't want to deal with a highly politicized trial, one ripe for impromptu acts of terror by sympathizers. OBL wanted to die a martyr, not in a cage like a common cur. The odds of him surrendering were slim from the get-go.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:10 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama better hope that there isn't a Churchill/Obama parallel as well, or things don't bode well for his re-election.

Not to mention his chances of having any future son turn out well.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:11 PM on May 2, 2011

jabberjaw: 3. The recent reports that bin Laden was killed with a double tap admittedly frightens me. I have no doubt that the SEAL team are, in fact, the best at what they do.

I'm not entirely clear on what is frightening you here. Is it the use of "double tap" that concerns you, or that the SEAL team utilized it?

Yes, I have the same question Cancer Man asked. I think I know what a double tap is, but never having handle this type of weapon - I don't have any sort of sense of how hard this is to do, or what the significance of the double tap is here. I would think they were prepared to shoot to kill, especially if, as Brennan said earlier in the press conference, OBL had a firearm in his hand.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:11 PM on May 2, 2011

OBL wanted to die a martyr, not in a cage like a common cur.

Somebody way upthread asked if people sympathized with Jesse James or Bonnie & Clyde. Lots of people do, and I wonder if the myths around them would be as strong if they didn't go out in blazes of glory.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:12 PM on May 2, 2011

A senior administration official said later that the woman who died was not bin Laden's wife and may not have been used as a human shield, as originally reported. Nor did bin Laden have a gun, as earlier reports had indicated, the senior official said. via

According to officials who declined to be identified by name, bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight, and his body was identified to near 100 percent certainty through DNA testing. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be one of bin Laden's wives, who was also at the compound, and matching physical features added confirmation, they said.
In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid, as was the wife who shielded him, Brennan said. Also killed were two of bin Laden's al-Qaida facilitators, including the one who was apparently listed as the owner of the residence, Brennan said. via

Huh. They are contradicting each other!

And my kids couldn't believe Bin Laden was only 54. I admit I thought he must be older, too--he looked like hell ten years ago and he was younger then than I am now!
posted by misha at 7:12 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:19 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wondering if Naseer Ahmed Roohi and the Roohi Tabsamm Clinic across the street from Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad had any connection.

OBL's compound is over here - it's not near that clinic.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:21 PM on May 2, 2011

There must have been a way to get him without killing her.

our militaristic police shoot puppies on raids now, so no.

to not be flip, AFAICT when a snatch squad of this importance is given the the go-ahead from the top, their job is to kill everyone between them and the target.

Remember, Team USA's Plan B would have been enough JDAMs and other precision ordnance to destroy that location.

Everyone in that "compound" was already dead.
posted by mokuba at 7:25 PM on May 2, 2011

"Obviously I was way out of line by daring to suggest that Osama had been 'executed'."

You didn't "dare to suggest it," you asserted it as a fact based on a misunderstanding of how the word "after" functions in phrases like "after a firefight." Even if it turns out he was executed you were still wrong.
posted by gerryblog at 7:27 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

go out in blazes of glory

Not sure if this is the exact term I would use for someone who died while using one of their wives as cover.
posted by EatTheWeek at 7:28 PM on May 2, 2011

Maybe the wife was named Glory?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:29 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

misha: And my kids couldn't believe Bin Laden was only 54. I admit I thought he must be older, too--he looked like hell ten years ago and he was younger then than I am now!

Yeah, but your cave probably has a few more frills.
posted by gman at 7:30 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Behind the scenes of the Bin Laden raid: The definitive NYT account of the intel/military victory.

Past history of Burial At Sea

Photo of the moment Obama got the news: Barack Obama Gets Information On The Bin Laden Raid In The Situation Room

The woman killed in the crossfire was not OBL's wife

OBL in bell bottoms

New York Times articles:

Details Released on DNA Match

Islamic Scholars Split Over Sea Burial for Bin Laden

It was unclear on Monday to what extent the thousands of sailors and other personnel aboard the Carl Vinson were aware of the burial as it was occurring.

How Osama bin Laden Was Located and Killed

Amid Skepticism, Pakistan Calculates Its Response “It’s inconceivable that Bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time,” John O. Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism official, said at a White House briefing on Monday.

When American operatives converged on the residence early on Monday morning, Bin Laden “resisted the assault force” and was shot in the head and killed near the end of an intense 40-minute gun battle, senior administration officials said.
posted by nickyskye at 7:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Ah shit, is the "after a firefight" thing still going? I oughta apologize - caught up in the moment, it was I who first saw a mountain in that molehill in this thread and commented carelessly. I wonder if Politico's Mike Allen has been watching this thread - the phrasing in his piece from this morning seems custom built to avoid precisely this kind of confusion.

Bin Laden was shot in the face by the SEALs during a firefight after resisting capture.

That better?
posted by EatTheWeek at 7:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes, I have the same question Cancer Man asked. I think I know what a double tap is, but never having handle this type of weapon - I don't have any sort of sense of how hard this is to do, or what the significance of the double tap is here.

Failure Drill. Most CQB involves this sort of shot placement and it's practiced relentlessly until it becomes second nature.
posted by longbaugh at 7:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

to not be flip, AFAICT when a snatch squad of this importance is given the the go-ahead from the top, their job is to kill everyone between them and the target.

(...)

Everyone in that "compound" was already dead.

According to the NYT, five people were killed. I believe that I previously read that the compound held 22 people.
posted by Flunkie at 7:34 PM on May 2, 2011

If, as is certainly a possiblity, she obstructed the SEALs as Osama was attempting to arm himself, she would have been shot. Him too.

Why is it so hard to believe that a man whose philosophy strongly embraced martyrdom wasn't resisting? I welcome skepticism but given the paucity of information and developing understanding of the event I'm unwilling to jump to conclusions but willing to accept the official narrative on the basis that the people directly involved aren't going to gab. At least until something more substantial than unsupported claims from anonymous sources are involved, of course.

Anonymous administration officials are often wrong. I think the "kill mission" idea came from an anonymous source in the Whitehouse too, but that has been officially denied. If the orders were to attempt to capture bin Laden and kill him if necessary, I have faith that our most elite soldiers would follow their orders to the letter. If that didn't happen... I guess it would be covered up. But these weren't war-hungry kids, these were elite professionals and it's reasonable to assume they would follow orders.

Certainly, investigative journalists should tear apart everything they can to corroborate or illuminate the narrative, but lacking any credible reason (beyond of course our nation's credibility) I'm taking Obama at his word.

mokuba: the reports all indicate limited casualties. Not sure how many were in the compound but five people seems a little low. Which is one of the reasons I'm willing to trust the President on this one. It really looks like this was done in the most responsible matter possible, and that's rare for us. I believe there were two wounded, which contradicts your assertion anyway.
posted by polyhedron at 7:35 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not that it bothers me in the slightest, but why do I hear finger quotes when reading the words "give up" and "resisted"?

Because you are inserting them there.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:35 PM on May 2, 2011 [7 favorites]

The one thing that keeps bothering me in this is the death of the wife bin Laden used as a human shield. There must have been a way to get him without killing her.

One thing that bothers me is all these assumptions that she had no agency in this.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

What's next? Claims of 72 mermaids?

72 sturgeons, surely.
posted by Heretic at 7:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The one thing that keeps bothering me in this is the death of the wife bin Laden used as a human shield. There must have been a way to get him without killing her.

Yeah, the SEALS shoulda remembered to turn on Bullet Time before engaging. Tsk.
posted by EatTheWeek at 7:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I won't rejoice in the death of one, even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that"

— MLKJr
posted by jojo chandran at 7:46 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Gutless piece of shit. I hope sharks are feasting as we speak.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 7:47 PM on May 2, 2011

First sentence of that quote is apparently fake, jojo.
posted by gerryblog at 7:51 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Never have I seen a thread with so much wild speculation and repetition of hearsay. This isn't collaborative storytelling, people. Can we discuss known knowns?
posted by tehloki at 7:52 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

New Daily Show in ten minutes! I hope EMRJKC94's suggested monologue proves on the mark; it's damn funny.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:55 PM on May 2, 2011

Er, five minutes. sorry, EmpressCallipygos.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:56 PM on May 2, 2011

How long until the Daily Show/Colbert go online? I miss having cable.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:58 PM on May 2, 2011

Middle of the night, mccarty.tim. It's always up by the time I wake up.
posted by gerryblog at 8:00 PM on May 2, 2011

First sentence of that quote is apparently fake, jojo.
posted by gerryblog at 7:51 PM on May 2 [+] [!]

Dang it, gerryblog. Well, my embarrassment here will only be mitigated by the superiority I plan to feel over at facebook posting this link everywhere I've seen that quote. May take me all night...
posted by jojo chandran at 8:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I did see one report that specified that the "human shield" woman was killed because there were two rooms that were being searched, Osama was in a bedroom and the woman was in the other and got caught in the crossfire as the SEALS fired at him. So she was between them and him, but whether she was placed there, jumped in the way, etc., no way of knowing.

But, as tehloki says, this is all just repetition of report(s), and each new one has been contradicting the ones that came before as reporters scramble for details (and affected parties try to spin whatever they can to make them come out looking the best).
posted by misha at 8:03 PM on May 2, 2011

This isn't collaborative storytelling, people. Can we discuss known knowns?

NO WE HAVE BIG TALK
posted by BeerFilter at 8:06 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Jon Stewart says tonight's guest on the Daily Show is filling in for their previously scheduled guest, Osama bin Laden...and that he found out about bin Laden's death while watching Celebrity Apprentice.
posted by misha at 8:06 PM on May 2, 2011

I was reading this thread last night, as I was waiting for the Prez to give his much delayed speech. I didn't want to chime in last night, because I was too emotional to be rational; and to be honest, I realize that what I'm about to say is going to make people angry.

I find a lot of the jubilation about bin Laden's death to be ... uncomfortable. It tastes of 2 Minutes of Hate.

I understand that "getting bin Laden" has been a "goal" of our entire incursion into the middle east, but now that the bogeyman has been slain; what did we really accomplish?

Will this stop the Wars in Two Countries? Will it stop terrorism? Does it make Americans any more safe than we were? Does it make *anyone* safer than they were before? Does this mean that we can fly without being felt up? Does it mean that the kids who are serving stop-gap and 5 tours in war zones can stop being shot at?

Did we accomplish anything with this strike, other than some sort of feel-good blood ritual?

I don't know that we did. I don't know that we made it any more safe for anyone. I do not think that Osama's death will transubstantiate into "healing" for those of us that lost friends and family on 9/11. I don't know. Maybe some people do. I don't feel any different knowing that Osama is dead...Beth is still dead, burned and buried, and Osama dying 10 years later won't bring her back. And all the yelling, and drunken flag waving and jingoistic patter...it all just seems in bad taste. It's like throwing a party on a grave.

I cried for most of last night; not because our special forces finally caught up with Osama...but because I thought about Beth, and I think she would have been appalled that her death had become a never-ending excuse for perpetual war, and that she was being held up as an example, by people who never knew her, of why someone else's death should be celebrated.
posted by dejah420 at 8:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [22 favorites]

Stewart not exactly worried about killing bin Laden. Nay, he is thrilled.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:09 PM on May 2, 2011

Stewart not exactly worried about killing bin Laden. Nay, he is thrilled.

As he said though, he's too close to what happened to be objective.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:13 PM on May 2, 2011

First sentence of that quote is apparently fake, jojo.

Thank you so much for posting that, because I just spent the last half hour trying to run it down after seeing it posted for the fifteenth time today in a FB status. I was starting to get really pissed off with people trying to use the words of a real martyr to shame those who think the world might be a little bit safer tonight due to the demise of a fake martyr.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:19 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Did you know that Osamas' father was killed in a plane crash, flown by an american. His brother was killed after crashing his aircraft into a Texas powerline.

this family and aircraft do not mix.
posted by clavdivs at 8:21 PM on May 2, 2011

I find a lot of the jubilation about bin Laden's death to be ... uncomfortable. It tastes of 2 Minutes of Hate.

I just write it off as people being human. ie morons.
posted by mokuba at 8:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sometimes when being presented with a legitimate 2 Minutes of Hate, you'd better enjoy it for what it is.
posted by localhuman at 8:43 PM on May 2, 2011

From nickyskye's "Islamic scholars" link:

Defense officials said that the administration reached out to one other country to take the body for burial, but that the country refused. One official, who like others quoted in this article spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules imposed by the administration, would not name the country, though some news outlets have cited Saudi Arabia, where Bin Laden was once a citizen. Mr. Brennan said that appealing to other countries would have exceeded the time frame that Islamic custom requires, of burial within 24 hours of death.

I'm finding it hard to care about this aspect of the story (folks saying Osama should have had a permanent burial site are being highly unrealistic, if not ridiculous), but it does look like the US is trying to have it both ways here. They should just say, "We gave him more than he deserved, but did honor those religious strictures we felt it was possible to honor. Next question?"

There are more quotes from Islamic leaders in this article: Muslim Scholar Says Al Qaeda Leader's Sea Burial 'Humiliates' Muslims:

"They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam," Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, said about bin Laden's burial. "If the family does not want him, it's really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that's it."

"Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances," he added. "This is not one of them."
posted by mediareport at 8:48 PM on May 2, 2011

Question, I might have missed the answer: where are the bodies of the wife and the 19 yro son now? Why weren't those given to relatives or the Pakistani authorities?
posted by carmina at 8:51 PM on May 2, 2011

usual suspects saying the same ole same ole and is this a metafilter record for an obititury?
posted by 404 Not Found at 8:52 PM on May 2, 2011

Aaron Sorkin directs the White House national security team as they watch the mission unfold.

I wonder how much HP marketing execs would like to use this picture.
posted by the_artificer at 8:54 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I tell you what, completely unrelated, I lost my job over that Dell laptop at the head of the table replacing those HPs. Fucking thing was shit, constantly freezing up in Word. If my boss hadn't forced me to switch the HP out for the Dell, he never woulda lost his temper that day when the Dell froze at go-time. Fuck Dell, up HP!
posted by BeerFilter at 8:59 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Daily Telegraph (our version of the NY Post) had the headline 'Evil Dead' today.

Yeah.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:00 PM on May 2, 2011

As he said though, he's too close to what happened to be objective.

Who amongst us is?
posted by Ironmouth at 9:01 PM on May 2, 2011

Note the Burn Bag next to Obama there.
posted by The Whelk at 9:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

My gut instinct is that someone fairly high up in Pakistan decided it was time to give him up. Why now? Maybe we'll find out soon, maybe not.

My take is that ISI is far too compromised for this to have happened. Thus the unilateral action by the US. I'm sure that ISI is incredibly pissed off that their Golden Boy was snatched from their hands in this way. Lots of pretending all around.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:01 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances," he added. "This is not one of them."

Really now? What circumstances could possibly be more extraordinary than these?
posted by EatTheWeek at 9:04 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hamza Bin Laden was the son that was killed. He was 20 years old. Images of him. His voice at age 16. What he said.

Hamza Laden is his father's true successor
posted by nickyskye at 9:05 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did we accomplish anything with this strike, other than some sort of feel-good blood ritual?

bin Laden raid yields trove of computer data
posted by ofthestrait at 9:06 PM on May 2, 2011

Fascinating stuff in that "definitive NYT account" of the raid in nickyskye's roundup above. We're still getting zero information about whether Osama had a gun, let alone fired any shots, when they found him on the third floor, or about what exactly his "resistance" entailed. But this is definitely the best news I've read today:

As they took off at 1:10 a.m. local time, taking a trove of documents and computer hard drives from the house....
posted by mediareport at 9:06 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Daily Telegraph (our version of the NY Post) had the headline 'Evil Dead' today.

Yeah.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:00 PM on May 3 [+] [!]

"our".... your an australian citizen now ?
not just some big mouthed expat
"show me the certificate"
posted by 404 Not Found at 9:09 PM on May 2, 2011

The Daily Telegraph (our version of the NY Post) had the headline 'Evil Dead' today.

And on the back cover, a small obituary ranting populist rubbish like "he was beloved of evil-doers everywhere & hated by all lovers of Freedom".

That was the special "souvenir" cover of the paper. Sickened by all the self-congratulatory jingoism, I flipped to the inside back page to catch up on the latest Rugby League news, only to be confronted with:

THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES - PORTRAITS OF AUSSIE DIGGERS WHO HAVE FALLEN IN THE WAR ON TERROR

*bleargh*
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:13 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

seriously could not give a fuck whether he was buried in accordance with Islamic traditions

forfeited that right a long while ago
posted by unSane at 9:15 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

It wasn't aimed at you unSane.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:17 PM on May 2, 2011

the whitehouse photostream is totally worth it.
posted by nile_red at 9:17 PM on May 2, 2011

From ofthestrait's Politico link:

Officials described the reaction of the special operators when they were told a number of weeks ago that they had been chosen to train for the mission. “They were told, ‘We think we found Osama bin Laden, and your job is to kill him,’” an official recalled.

Not quite a refutation of the "We wanted to take him alive" stuff from the White House (seems likely that later orders would be less gung-ho), just another interesting bit of complexity.
posted by mediareport at 9:20 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Daily Telegraph (our version of the NY Post) had the headline 'Evil Dead' today.

And on the back cover, a small obituary ranting populist rubbish like "he was beloved of evil-doers everywhere & hated by all lovers of Freedom".

I dunno... the jingoism was kinda drowned out by the dorkiness and the mental image of Bruce Campbell taking out Bin Laden.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:29 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

even after the allegedly most hated human being (imo) in the world is allegedly dead
the haters still gonna hate
as amusement when i read comments from certain posters i change there nick and in my head and it makes more sense....example: unsane becomes insane...
posted by 404 Not Found at 9:31 PM on May 2, 2011

as amusement when i read comments from certain posters i change there nick and in my head and it makes more sense....example: unsane becomes insane...

don't those two words mean the same thing?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:33 PM on May 2, 2011

Something Awful and The Onion both have some weak satire
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 9:34 PM on May 2, 2011

White House modifies Osama bin Laden account

According to White House staff:

Bin Laden used his wife as a human shield while he fired at the US SEALS;
Except it wasn't his wife, but another woman
And she wasn't being used as a human shield, but was killed in the crossfire
Although Bin Laden wasn't armed at the time he was killed.

Clarifying quote: The bottom line is the team that entered that room was met with resistance and took appropriate action.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:34 PM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

Came across this googling Hamza Bin Laden, found it an intriguing article:

By releasing the tape, the Bush administration did not just grant Bin Laden a reprieve but a presidential pardon one would ever get that close to him again.
posted by nickyskye at 9:37 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am assuming the footage of the house was shot by SEALS. I heard a dog barking and the news reports a dog was involved in the OP. I would say this fire fight lasted 2 minutes.

hey 404, how is everything downunder.
posted by clavdivs at 9:37 PM on May 2, 2011

i mean "going"
posted by clavdivs at 9:39 PM on May 2, 2011

The white house photo stream is totally worth it
posted by The Whelk at 9:40 PM on May 2, 2011

ofthestrait writes ""bin Laden raid yields trove of computer data"

WTF Al Qaeda IT? TrueCrypt is free you fools.
posted by Mitheral at 9:43 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

you minx I was just flipping through that and fell in love all over again with gold brocade and joe Bidens lack of necktie.
that coffee table, straight out of the lobby of an aquarium.
posted by clavdivs at 9:45 PM on May 2, 2011

"The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy." - Marcus Aurelius

" It is no use saying, "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." - Churchill

"For every one hundred men you send us, ten should not even be here. Eighty are nothing but targets. Nine of them are real fighters;we are lucky to have them, they the battle make. Ah, but the one. One of them is a warrior. And he will bring the others back." -- Heraclitus

But mostly,

"The loss of enemies does not compensate for the loss of friends" - Lincoln
posted by Smedleyman at 9:52 PM on May 2, 2011 [16 favorites]

everything is the same... we already have our self appointed spokesperson to speak on our behalf of downunder...but thanks for noticing
posted by 404 Not Found at 9:52 PM on May 2, 2011

ofthestrait: "bin Laden raid yields trove of computer data"
Mitheral: "WTF Al Qaeda IT? TrueCrypt is free you fools."

Nobody said it wasn't encrypted. But even so, they may get some real world data on those descriptions that "it would take all of the nation's universities' computers two years to break such and such a cipher." Assuming there's no security flaw or back door.
posted by msalt at 9:56 PM on May 2, 2011

Came across this googling Hamza Bin Laden, found it an intriguing article

Interesting article, but it almost seems like a joke. They make their case for the meeting being on Sept. 26 and then proceed to make their case for the location, saying:

Also, both the Bin Laden tape and an Al-Jazeerah tape show the kids handling the wreckage of the Special Forces helicopter that went down in bad weather on November 2, 2001[...]

Trying to find the full video to verify that the kids are in fact handling the wreckage turns up lots of conspiracy-nutty type videos.
posted by polyhedron at 9:56 PM on May 2, 2011

You know, it's weird how so many responses to this are basically "Osama Bin Laden's actions personally impacted me in some way, so I deserve to be able to treat this killing as a solely emotional, and not an ethical or multi-faceted, issue!!!" With all due respect and deep empathy, no fucking shit you feel that way. So do lots of people in the world, many of whom, surprise surprise!, have been wronged in some similar way by US or "the West". This is the reason our (theoretical) manner of handling things is not running around killing people based on our anguish.
posted by threeants at 9:56 PM on May 2, 2011 [23 favorites]

I'm not defending waterboarding per se -- but you can't state that "standard" interrogations would have yielded the same outcome without the earlier waterboarding.

Josef Mengele says hi.
posted by dirigibleman at 10:05 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

the Whitehouse photostream is totally worth it
posted by nile_red at 10:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So do lots of people in the world, many of whom, surprise surprise!, have been wronged in some similar way by US or "the West". This is the reason our (theoretical) manner of handling things is not running around killing people based on our anguish.

Well, yes, that;s true, and I had to do a lot of explaining to Americans post 9/11 when they were all "why do they hate us" that there are people out there with very good reasons to hate you and who have had them for many, many years.

On the other hand, Bin Laden, who basically took that resentment as the source of his power and used it to wreak havok, is still an evil murdering shit who deserved every one of the bullets his body was riddled with.

The hand wringing is bullshit.
posted by Artw at 10:09 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Nobody said it wasn't encrypted. But even so, they may get some real world data on those descriptions that "it would take all of the nation's universities' computers two years to break such and such a cipher." Assuming there's no security flaw or back door.

If you do it right, my understanding is that you actually can't expect break a decent encryption with a strong (STRONG) passphrase even if you run all the computers on the planet until the heat-death of the Universe. Unless the NSA has something really, really, really sneaky up its sleeve, of course.

Not that there might be some other thing- like if any of the computers were on at the time, and were kept on, thereby leaving the passphrase in memory somewhere.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:11 PM on May 2, 2011

whatever right? sounds like he may as well have been retired, living in a nice house, probably eating good food, spending most days relaxing in the sun.

this is a non event
posted by Shit Parade at 10:12 PM on May 2, 2011

Those couriers, they were just popping by to say Hi...
posted by Artw at 10:15 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

I was living in Eastern Washington for the first couple years of the War on Terror. A schoolteacher from Ephrata vowed that he would never shave his beard until bin Laden was captured or killed. I chuckled at the news, reckoned the fella would never see his chin again, decided you gotta make your own fun in Ephrata in the first place, and forgot all about him until the other night when a gal I knew in high school put this up on Facebook.

So don't nobody dare say that bin Laden's death is meaningless. Shaving off a beard merely one year old feels wonderful - after ten, this dude's chin must feel absolutely amazing to him right now. That's not nuthin.
posted by EatTheWeek at 10:16 PM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

Artw your either a great believer of everything your told or you have personally met this
Bin Laden, who basically took that resentment as the source of his power and used it to wreak havok, is still an evil murdering shit who deserved every one of the bullets his body was riddled with.
posted by 404 Not Found at 10:20 PM on May 2, 2011

Well, yes, that;s true, and I had to do a lot of explaining to Americans post 9/11 when they were all "why do they hate us" that there are people out there with very good reasons to hate you and who have had them for many, many years.

On the other hand, Bin Laden, who basically took that resentment as the source of his power and used it to wreak havok, is still an evil murdering shit who deserved every one of the bullets his body was riddled with.

The hand wringing is bullshit.

Not really seeing any counterpoint here..."the guy who did something bad to me and mine is special!" The point is not that Bin Laden isn't a baddie (he was, though I don't support the death penalty, including vigilante-style). The point is: there are Americans who have orchestrated the deaths of over 3000 innocents in Latin America, or Vietnam, or Iraq. Is it acceptable to go to their homes and shoot them in the head without further ado? Not in my worldview, no. The point is that this whole "duh, he's bad and upsets me, KILLIN' time!" approach to justice is little more than 'he said, she said' ethics.
posted by threeants at 10:22 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

Osama was just a man, communication by courier wouldn't be an effective means to plan much of anything. What, was he some sort of evil-genius-comic-book-villain?

Bah, this victory is dick stroking.
posted by Shit Parade at 10:28 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

The justification for this event can be summed up neatly with that most Texan of legal defence tactics:

He needed killin'.
posted by bwg at 10:29 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

Bah, this victory is dick stroking.

Not as much as your pathetically obvious attempt at trolling is.
posted by dersins at 10:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

Artw your either a great believer of everything your told or you have personally met this Bin Laden.

Well, shit, I read a lot. It's not like it isn't wasn't possible to follow his activities since way before 9/11, or last week, whenever it was that you first heard of him. He's a pretty high profile and well documented global actor. Now, I could say "what if this was all made up", and I'm all for a good bit of skepticism and cynisim, but really at that point it becomes functionally equivalent to smoking a bunch of pot and saying "what if we were all, like, brains in tanks and the outside world was just being wired in to us maaaaan." - which is all very fine for teenagers, but eventually you have to consider whether knee-jerk contrarianism just makes you sound like an idiot or a child.
posted by Artw at 10:32 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm being honest. This event ranks slightly below your favorite team winning the superbowl or what have you.
posted by Shit Parade at 10:33 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Go say that to someone who lost friends and family on 9/11/01.
posted by rtha at 10:35 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

To those questioning the meaning of this event, some of us see it as an opportunity to move forward from the War on Terror (ugh).

I obviously want to believe that we did this the best way possible. Maybe I'll only get a day of naive optimism out of it, but I don't think the feeling that we can move on isn't shared by some of my fellow citizens. In a democratic society, that means something.
posted by polyhedron at 10:37 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

really? you are going to pull that out rtha? want to count how many have died since 9/11 cause unless you are going to say americans are more important than brown muslims you got to be joking
posted by Shit Parade at 10:37 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

The hand-wringing is bullshit. bin Laden made every effort to establish himself as Global Supervillian.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:37 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

it would be nice if this actually meant we as a nation are going to move on, but that isn't going to happen.
posted by Shit Parade at 10:41 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I'm being honest. This event ranks slightly below your favorite team winning the superbowl or what have you."

hold on you guys this is coming from someone who really loves football so dont judge
posted by klangklangston at 10:42 PM on May 2, 2011 [8 favorites]

LOL@lamer.troll
posted by five fresh fish at 10:43 PM on May 2, 2011

is that really the best response, no i am not being serious, i am just being a troll? Therefore ignore what I am saying?
posted by Shit Parade at 10:46 PM on May 2, 2011

At this point in the thread? Yeah, pretty much. You reek of insincerity and shit-stirring.
posted by dersins at 10:47 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

just for once, the let others speak, and give an opinion instead of being drowned out by "metafilter bullshit"
posted by 404 Not Found at 10:48 PM on May 2, 2011

really? you are going to pull that out rtha?really? you are going to pull that out rtha?

Yeah, I am. You're certainly entitled to feel however you want to feel about this non-event, or not, as you see fit. Your declarations that everyone else should feel that way, too, are absurd and stupid. You are living up to your handle, I'll say that for you.
posted by rtha at 10:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

It kind of sheds a new light on the Mumbai attacks, which had the Al Queda signature and were presumed to be carried out with the assistance of the ISI, that Bin Laden has been sitting in their back yard all this time, in what according to some (admitedly pretty dodgy looking os far) reports was a former ISI safehouse.
posted by Artw at 10:48 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

From an article for FP by Mosharraf Zaidi:

The notion that one fine day bin Laden adorned a burqa and made a trip over perhaps the most treacherous 180 miles of terrain in the world, from Tora Bora to Abbottabad, without catching the attention of Pakistan's vast, richly endowed, and unaccountable military establishment is as ridiculous as any conspiracy theories now being peddled by Pakistan's incorrigible right-wing hacks -- with the most common version simply refusing to believe that he is dead.

It is even less likely that, as U.S. counterterrorism czar John Brennan claimed in a press conference today, Pakistani authorities did not know about the military operation that killed bin Laden until it was over. Abbottabad's Bilal Town neighborhood where bin Laden lived and died was virtually around the corner from the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul -- Pakistan's West Point, where future General Kayanis and General Pashas are learning to be officers. It doesn't take 40 minutes to start to scramble planes, or get troops to Abbottabad, and there is no getting into the town by land or air without the expressed consent of Pakistan's security establishment. This may not have been an official joint operation, but it was almost certainly a collective effort. [The Lies They Tell Us]

posted by vidur at 10:49 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'll get the folding chairs and cray paper. (skulks near pedestal)
posted by clavdivs at 10:50 PM on May 2, 2011

Artw wrote: The hand wringing is bullshit.

I don't think anyone is actually concerned about Osama bin laden. I'm saddened by the way your country has changed from one with a belief in universal human rights to one which believes that there are rights that belong to your citizens, and rights that apply to people in particular parts of the world, but no rights that apply to everyone, everywhere.

So yes, I think it's a shame that your country has used illegal imprisonment and torture to gather information which led to the assassination of five people. I don't especially care about Osama; it's you. I care about the USA because you have a great country with a great history, but you've been pissing it all away on a bit of jingoistic revenge-fantasy.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:50 PM on May 2, 2011 [11 favorites]

is that really the best response, no i am not being serious, i am just being a troll? Therefore ignore what I am saying?

You do seem to be leaping into the thread with some full-throated shit-stirring, man. I don't think the troll-or-not debate is particularly useful, but question of differing opinions entirely aside you're being awfully aggro and tonedeaf about your entrance here and I'd appreciate it you'd take a couple steps back and reconsider what exactly you're hoping to accomplish.

There are much, much better ways to approach some sort of "I disagree with x, y, z" gambit than what you've done so far, and I'd appreciate you cutting it out.
posted by cortex at 10:50 PM on May 2, 2011

Artw: I can't begin to tell you how fervently I hope your speculation (I recognize that you're not claiming it's more than speculation, either. Not an attack.) is unfounded.
posted by bardophile at 10:51 PM on May 2, 2011

Well, yeah. ISI is compromised, everyone knows that, and It's what makes complaints that the Pakistanis were not told ahead of time look rather silly because if you do that you're looking at an empty house, but what this implies about the extent to which ISI is compromised is fucking chilling.
posted by Artw at 10:53 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

the Mumbai attacks, which had the Al Queda signature

Did they? Backyard commandos shooting people up doesn't seem to have been their standard MO.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:53 PM on May 2, 2011

clavdivs: "I'll get the folding chairs and cray paper. (skulks near pedestal)"

I thought it was crepe paper? Have I been saying that wrong my entire life?
posted by nile_red at 10:53 PM on May 2, 2011

I don't think anyone is actually concerned about Osama bin laden. I'm saddened by the way your country has changed from one with a belief in universal human rights to one which believes that there are rights that belong to your citizens, and rights that apply to people in particular parts of the world, but no rights that apply to everyone, everywhere.

Not an American, never ever believed that about America.
posted by Artw at 10:54 PM on May 2, 2011

Did they? Backyard commandos shooting people up doesn't seem to have been their standard MO.

The simultaenous assualt thing is very Al Queda. The recruits from abroad thing is very Al Queda. Some of the targets made absolutely no sense at all for locals, but made befect sense for Al Queda. And it's not like they only ever do planes and bombs, whatever the popular media image.
posted by Artw at 10:56 PM on May 2, 2011

Look, everyone wants to make this an event, but it isn't very important, it's at best symbolic, and I guess most people operate on that level without taking the time to reflect. but yeah, I'm sharing opinion, sorry it isn't popular. And for the record, if i wanted to troll i could do a better job than this.
posted by Shit Parade at 10:57 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm saddened by the way your country has changed from one with a belief in universal human rights to one which believes that there are rights that belong to your citizens, and rights that apply to people in particular parts of the world, but no rights that apply to everyone, everywhere.

I've come to regard that as a beautiful myth taught to children, like Santa. We have yet to accept universal human rights as a society. May that day come.
posted by polyhedron at 10:58 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

So yes, I think it's a shame that your country has used illegal imprisonment and torture to gather information which led to the assassination of five people

That's swell, except that torture wasn't what got the info and assassination of five isn't what happened.

You can make your arguments without untruths, and they'd be more effective for the effort b
posted by five fresh fish at 11:00 PM on May 2, 2011

in other threads we would appreciate contributions from someone so close to the source
and i for one thank you bardophile for at least trying
posted by 404 Not Found at 11:03 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

The simultaenous assualt thing is very Al Queda. The recruits from abroad thing is very Al Queda.

Come now, that is pure speculation. Act of terrorism, very Al Queda; Shit blowing up; very Al Qaeda. I'm not saying there isn't a link, but to act like a few very simple things that many many terrorist acts share is somehow a missing link, well, I just don't think it's very helpful.

By that kind of criteria, Al Qaeda were also behind attacks by Basque Nationalists, Sandinistas, and dozens of other groups. Idle speculation about stuff like this does more harm than good, imho.

The "Al Qaeda signature" in the sense you've used it is about as unique as a big "X".
posted by smoke at 11:06 PM on May 2, 2011

Mumbai attacks, which had the Al Queda signature.

That'd only be true under a fairly broad definition of "signature". There are many terrorist groups that have links with the loose network that Al-Qaeda itself is, and many must have drawn inspiration from attacks like 9/11 or the Embassy bombings etc. but talk of "signature" of Al-Qaeda is not meaningful unless there is something really specific.

Simultaneous bombings, though not manned assaults, have been done across India by terrorists for many years. Ditto for foreign-recruited terrorists in Kashmir. Ditto for targets that make sense only if media attention (foreign and/or local) is considered a factor. Terrorists have been doing all sorts of such things for years. I'm sure there are examples from other countries as well.
posted by vidur at 11:06 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gah, I'm not sure which of "Shit Parade's" comments is best suited for an eponysterical crack. LAMENESS ANOMIE GAAAAAH!
posted by EatTheWeek at 11:06 PM on May 2, 2011

"Foreign recruited terrorists" when talking about Pakistanis in India is pretty silly.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:09 PM on May 2, 2011

Sorry - an analogy would be talking about the IRA as "foreign recruited" if they pulled off an attack in Northern Ireland.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:11 PM on May 2, 2011

"Foreign recruited terrorists" when talking about Pakistanis in India is pretty silly.

I was thinking about recruits from Sudan, Somalia and some Central Asian countries. But, you know, whatever.
posted by vidur at 11:14 PM on May 2, 2011

more on the fake MLK quote which I'm seeing everywhere
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 11:14 PM on May 2, 2011

Al Qaeda were also behind attacks by Basque Nationalists, Sandinistas, and dozens of other groups

"Terrorist bombs shattered a floating restaurant on the Saigon river here tonight and killed at least 29 persons, including eight Americans.

"Two big explosions sounded almost simultaneously from the river bank."

-- June 25, 1965

oh shit AQ has time machines now
posted by mokuba at 11:15 PM on May 2, 2011

everyone wants to make this an event, but it isn't very important, it's at best symbolic, and I guess most people operate on that level without taking the time to reflect.

I agree with all of that. You've just got to understand that people are put together different from you.
posted by mokuba at 11:17 PM on May 2, 2011

I was thinking about recruits from Sudan, Somalia and some Central Asian countries. But, you know, whatever.

The Mumbai attackers included those nationalities? If so, consider me corrected.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:17 PM on May 2, 2011

Have I been saying that wrong my entire life?
yes, I always flaw a sentenceyouseemsuprised.

It doesn't take 40 minutes to start to scramble planes, or get troops to Abbottabad, and there is no getting into the town by land or air without the expressed consent of Pakistan's security establishment. This may not have been an official joint operation, but it was almost certainly a collective effort. from vidurs link.

This does not make much sense, the helos were "invisible" as far as reports are concerned. Evade detection, insert, mission, extract. seemed to have worked. Those birds are quiet folks, and the people assulting even more quiet. The theory is, when you hear them, they are already here. Total element of suprise. Reports say gunfire may have started outside? Flashbangs were deployed. Also, unless the house had some primitive sheilding, everyone in that compound was lit up on microwave or IR. Also, if we believe the report of the wife being in one room then acting as a sheild suggests a rapid breach. My theory is he and she were dazed and had enough time to fire off his weapon. Now this all hinges that the SEALS were inside before the helo that crashed..well, landed. That would make some noise. I'm sure DoD and the prez will release some details and grapics which have a nice little walkthough, a slide-show perhaps. Real art on the body being made public, I doubt it.
posted by clavdivs at 11:17 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Look, everyone wants to make this an event, but it isn't very important, it's at best symbolic, and I guess most people operate on that level without taking the time to reflect.

So what you are saying is that you wanted to totally drop a banal insight on us in an abrasive way because wake up sheeple you're not on my level.

Cool, how's that work for you? Pretty good?

Maybe better with a macro :/
posted by klangklangston at 11:21 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

I don't especially care about Osama; it's you. I care about the USA because you have a great country with a great history, but you've been pissing it all away on a bit of jingoistic revenge-fantasy.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
posted by mokuba at 11:22 PM on May 2, 2011

I was thinking about recruits from Sudan, Somalia and some Central Asian countries. But, you know, whatever.

The Mumbai attackers included those nationalities? If so, consider me corrected.

Um, no. I said: "Ditto for foreign-recruited terrorists in Kashmir." My point was that this has been going on for many years. Nothing "Al-Qaeda" about it.

An excerpt from an interview - published in 1999, badly formatted archive - of "the leader of Kashmir's All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), Abdul Gani Lone", described as "a hardline Kashmiri secessionist leader":

But how does the APHC explain the involvement of foreign mercenaries in Kashmir? Doesn't it damage your cause.

Again I would put the blame on Indian intransigence. The armed struggle in Kashmir started in 1989. India has ever since been answering Kashmiri resentment with bullets and suppression. It is but natural for Muslims all over the world to react to the plight of Kashmiris, more so when there is provision for jihad in Islam. Personally, many Kashmiris may not like the intervention of mercenaries but we have no choice. People generally believe that these mercenaries are there for liberating them from their oppressors. The security forces may tell you that the local people are against mercenaries. This is not true. See the recent attack on Army headquarters. Do you think the foreign mujahideenhave done it on their own? They must have been helped by local people.

But leaders like you have always asked Pakistan to keep mercenaries away from Kashmir.

Nothing is in our hands until the Indian government treats Kashmiris humanely. They have to give up the bullet-for-bullet policy and volunteer for a dialogue with Kashmiris as they are doing in the Northeast. Only this will enable us to prevail upon outsiders to keep off Kashmir. Till then, just as we have no choice in getting out of the clutches of the Indian armed forces, we have no role in either inviting or throwing out the foreigners.

Note: His description in that article may not be accurate for his later life. He was assassinated in 2002.
posted by vidur at 11:26 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

t doesn't take 40 minutes to start to scramble planes, or get troops to Abbottabad, and there is no getting into the town by land or air without the expressed consent of Pakistan's security establishment. This may not have been an official joint operation, but it was almost certainly a collective effort. from vidurs link.

This does not make much sense, the helos were "invisible" as far as reports are concerned. Evade detection, insert, mission, extract. seemed to have worked.

Well, it means that the Pakistan Army and ISI are either bumbling idiots for not having the area near Kakul better guarded (particularly if they knew that bin Laden was there, which is what most people seem to be suggesting), or were at least tacitly part of the operation. I think Zaidi, like most Pakistanis, would prefer to think that they were tacit partners, rather than that we've been giving 40% of our national budget to people who are so totally incompetent.
posted by bardophile at 11:30 PM on May 2, 2011

We don't need any help understanding that al Qaeda / the Taliban had connections to the Mumbai attacks. Lashkar-e-Taiba is well-known as a different but affiliated radical Muslim terrorist organization with ties to both, and there's circumstantial evidence to suggest ISI are assisting or have assisted that group.

All of the attackers were identified by Mumbai police as being Pakistani in origin, by the way.

As for bin Laden: look, I'm not jumping up and down for joy over here, chanting acronyms, or thinking this is the Super Bowl. But a dude who orchestrated the murder of thousands of civilians in the United States and elsewhere, who oversaw attacks against embassies, warships and rival factions, who declared war against the United States, got shot by soldiers. I can't think of a single definition of noncombatant that would apply to this guy. So, to answer dejah420's question, what good did it do? A guy with power and resources bent on injuring and killing people isn't going to anymore. It's maybe not the best outcome of the story, but it's not the worst one. I don't for a second think blood washes away blood, but it can prevent other blood from being spilled sometimes. Sometimes that's all you get.
posted by Errant at 11:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Joe in Australia writes: "I care about the USA because you have a great country with a great history, but you've been pissing it all away on a bit of jingoistic revenge-fantasy."

I feel exactly the same way about Israel.
posted by bardic at 11:31 PM on May 2, 2011 [9 favorites]

i was listening to WIDR, our local college radio station, in the midst of some hip hop program playing some fairly radical conscious hip hop that threw doubt on the true actors of 9/11 and praised the black panthers and huey newton

then the announcers came on - one of them expressed doubt that it was bin laden that was killed - and then told his audience about how obama had been a cia operative in pakistan years ago and might have even impersonated osama a couple of times - and that the truth is out there on youtube and the internet

well, i guess that's the postmodern age for you - a time where anyone can construct his own narrative about the events of the times and feel that his account is just as reliable as the official one - and a few people, i suppose, will buy into it

so a lot of people are dubious - and i'd like to go back to lupus_yonderboy's doubting thomas comments and perhaps come up with a reason why the government's version of events seems plausible to me

someone asked of him - who would benefit from faking this whole episode of osama's death? - but that's not quite the right question - obviously, the president and the government would

the real question - what would they have to gain from faking it NOW? - if they could fake it NOW, couldn't have they faked it at anytime? - like during the health care debate? - like right before last year's congressional election? - wouldn't have the political benefits been greater then, than now?

i won't say that lupus_yonderboy's skepticism is entirely misplaced - but it's important to put things in their context - and to me, there's simply no rational reason why obama and the government would choose to fake this now when other times would have suited them much better

i do think it would be best if we were presented with more evidence, just so we could pre-empt the "deathers" from making a huge deal out of the sketchy details that have had been made public - but in spite of that, i don't doubt that we're being told the truth here - it just doesn't make sense to me that they would choose to fake it at this particular moment
posted by pyramid termite at 11:36 PM on May 2, 2011 [4 favorites]

President Zardari (I still cringe every time I have to say that) has not found the time to address the Pakistani people since the raid, but he has had the time to write an op-ed piece for the Washington Post.
posted by bardophile at 11:37 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

So what you are saying is that you wanted to totally drop a banal insight on us in an abrasive way because wake up sheeple you're not on my level.

Cool, how's that work for you? Pretty good?

how is this considered adult conversation? "Sheeple" it seems will never go out of style on metafilter. and my statements about this being a non-event don't seem banal based on the general reaction that they are so unexpected as to be disbelieved that they are genuine.

I'm not trying to especially abrasive, just blunt. We talk about hand-wringing, seems some mefites need hand-holding as well. Yes I have a different opinion, sorry it is upsetting -- but stop for a moment and think, how people are angry and killing each other because their angry everyone doesn't agree with them?
posted by Shit Parade at 11:38 PM on May 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

All of the attackers were identified by Mumbai police as being Pakistani in origin, by the way.

I stand corrected. I was going by the old reports that some of them were British, apparently that was later found not to be the case.
posted by Artw at 11:38 PM on May 2, 2011

I feel exactly the same way about Israel.

Hey, cut it out! I've already emptied my supermarket's entire popcorn shelf.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:42 PM on May 2, 2011 [6 favorites]

I think I should just clarify - I know the USA, like every other country, has always fallen short of its ideals. None the less, its ideals, particularly those expressed in the preamble to its Declaration of Independence, show a magnificent commitment to universal human rights.

It's a great shame that courts in the USA are today making pettifogging distinctions between the rights of prisoners in "proper" parts of the USA and the rights of prisoners in places that are merely controlled by it in perpetuity; between the rights of prisoners of war and the rights of "enemy combatants"; and between war-war and "war on terror" war.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'm sure DoD and the prez will release some details and grapics which have a nice little walkthough, a slide-show perhaps.

They should release a CoD map
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 11:44 PM on May 2, 2011 [3 favorites]

The ISI in Pakistan has been responsible for stirring up so much shit across the world (see: A.Q. Khan), it was unbelievable that the US ever trusted them. I would be very surprised if the ISI was informed of the operation. Keeping the bogeyman alive was a huge cash cow for Pakistan.
posted by benzenedream at 11:57 PM on May 2, 2011

"between the rights of prisoners of war and the rights of 'enemy combatants'"

When the Israeli military murdered a US citizen in international waters, which was he?

There are a lot of things the US military should answer for -- torture in Iraq and Gitmo, civilian bombing, war crimes, etc.

But to decide to take this moment and become self-righteous over the killing of a psycopath like bin Laden? I shant shed any tears.

And for an avowed apologist for Israel's actions over the past few decades frankly, your crocodile tears are risible.

As I tried to argue up-thread, lots of the spontaneous revelers came out not out of bloodlust (although I'm sure there was plenty of that) but because the death of OBL is hopefully -- tenatively of course -- the leverage Obama can use to finally bring US troops back home and try and move on after a decade of Abu Ghraibs and Gitmos and dead muslim babies as "collateral damage," all in the name of "securing the region," i.e., giving Israel whatever it wants, whenever it wants.

Until then, the Israeli goverment is free to stop cashing the checks they get in the form of my US tax dollars. I won't hold my breath.
posted by bardic at 12:06 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's a finer line than many suppose between skepticism and credulity. All too often the self-described "skeptic" invents a narrative more detailed and fantastic than would be otherwise demanded of him, but where's the fun in believing that a bunch of assholes can fly planes into buildings, when there's a much more exciting world out there of psychopaths, cover-ups, traitors, lies, and the Truth, where the "skeptic" is at the center of the show, in his own way "controlling" scary, unpredictable events by mediating its truths and lies. Nothing to do with proper dubiousness.

i do think it would be best if we were presented with more evidence, just so we could pre-empt the "deathers" from making a huge deal out of the sketchy details that have had been made public

In all seriousness, what evidence would sway a deather? If the deather's presumption is that the US is going to lie about killing OBL, then why wouldn't the US just forge some convincing photos and videos of a bloodied bin Laden, or forge some DNA results, or whatever? It's turtles all the way down.

The best evidence we're going to get is from people who know OBL who are going to remark, "oh crap, he's dead, I know this because I can usually get in contact with this guy but now I can't, because he's dead."
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:11 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

well, i guess that's the postmodern age for you - a time where anyone can construct his own narrative about the events of the times and feel that his account is just as reliable as the official one - and a few people, i suppose, will buy into it

Nothing postmodern about it at all. People have been telling fairy stories for as long as there have been stories. It's only nowadays that we can have instantaneous factual rebuttals.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:12 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

If the US was going to lie about OBL being dead why not do it back in 2002 when it would have been hugely beneficial to the Bush II administration.

1)Photo of collapsed cave entrance with some AK-47's and Korans sprinkled about.
2) George Bush donning a flight suit and landing on an aircraft carrier with a faked photo of bin Laden's crushed body.
3) Profit

Remember, America actually supported the war in Afghanistan. We would have lapped it up no problem.
posted by bardic at 12:16 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

*supported the war in Afghanistan back then, unlike the polling in 2011
posted by bardic at 12:17 AM on May 3, 2011

One real-world effect that elevates this event above that of a league championship in importance is that it probably adds to Obama's chances in Virginia, it being a "military" state and all.

Assuming Obama loses FL, NC, IN, and OH, the next state on his 2008 strength list was VA. If he doesn't hold that, then he has to retain ALL of the next 9-10 states, which end at NJ and OR (he's probably safe in OR unless the idiot progressives decide to split the vote like they did up north today).
posted by mokuba at 12:18 AM on May 3, 2011

“With a sibling, there is only a likelihood that you’ll share some DNA with them,” said Mitchell Holland, a forensic scientist at Penn State University and former head of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory. “With a half-sibling, that complicates things even farther.”

ABC reports Osama ID'd with DNA from dead sister's brain, but hospital denies

Osama Bin Laden's half sister was named Sheikha (or Shaika). Jamal Khalifa was Bin Laden's close friend in university in the late seventies. Khalifa later went on to marry bin Laden's half sister Sheikha in 1986. I couldn't find a record of Sheikha al-Attas (the last name of her father) or Sheikha Khalifa.

An interesting read: Inside the kingdom: my life in Saudi Arabia By Carmen Bin Ladin (Carmen was married to one of Osama bin Laden's older brothers, Yeslam bin Ladin, until 1988.)
posted by nickyskye at 12:21 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

ALso it cannot be ruled out that after the body was taken away someone off camera may have picked up his mysterious ring and laughed offscreen.
posted by Artw at 12:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

ironmouth:
Rumsfeld:
Courier source not waterboarded.
Makes sense, as waterboarding and the worst of it was done overseas on non-US soil deliberately, and Guantanamo was listed as source of info.
So fuck you torturers.

WaPo reports now:
'A crucial break appears to have come on May 2, 2005, when Pakistani special forces arrested a senior al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who had been designated bin Laden’s “official messenger” to others within the organization. Libbi was later turned over to the CIA and held at a “black site” prison where he was subjected to the harsh methods that the George W. Bush administration termed “enhanced interrogation techniques.”'

So yeah, Rumsfeld's statement that waterboarding didn't happen at Gitmo could be totally true. Doesn't mean that the "harsh methods" didn't yield the info that led to the locating of OBL.

My feelings about this are conflicted, to say the least. I suspect a lot of people will feel the same, and this will become a major issue in the public dialog.
posted by torticat at 12:31 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bardic, can we avoid getting into a derail about other countries here?

Courts in the USA have held (*) that people captured by the USA and imprisoned in Guantanamo and other extra-territorial US prisons have neither the rights of prisoners in the USA nor those of POWs. They have also refused to hear civil proceedings brought by people who were kidnapped and tortured by the CIA, under the theory (*) that they can't examine actions of the USA's executive branch taken in the name of national security. This is a huge erosion of civil rights, and it's all because of the War on Terror. I'm not upset about bin Laden's death per se; I'm upset about all the crappy stuff that was done to accomplish it. (**)

(*) As I understand it.
(**) It's quite possible that they found him without using any information acquired through the use of torture, but my point is they were torturing people.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:32 AM on May 3, 2011

posted by anigbrowl at 4:27 PM on May 2 [33 favorites +] [!]

What a load of crap.

First of all, the US government has not lied to you particularly. Your choice of words conjures up an image of cabinet officials debating what lupus_yonderboy should be told about this or that. While I am sure this is entirely unintentional, your tone of personal offense is very much at odds with your claims of objectivity.

Well the U.S. government has a pretty good track record of lying and I'm pretty sure they are lying to someone. Of course you are correct that when governments lie they don't have any one particular person in mind, but rather society as a whole. If I, you, or anyone else is part of that society then we have been personally lied to whether any government officials took us personally into account. I fail to see what this has to do with anything other than attempting to slyly smear a target. Lame strawman is lame.

Second, it is true that the US government has lied to the public many times during the last 48 years. But the idea that this amounts to a systematic campaign of deception is irrational. The federal government is a huge organization that governs a huge country and which is staffed by fallible human beings, many of whom are replaced every election cycle. Disagreements are inevitable in such a system, given the wide variations of interests, beliefs, and capabilities in American society. Extreme disagreements will involves disputes about ethical matters, for causes ranging from matters of principle to venality, ass-covering and sometimes corruption.

So let me get this straight the fact that the government has lied many times over the years doesn't amount to the government lying systematically over the years? Hmmmm. Oh well I guess I'll just roll over and go back to sleep then.

Third, you speak as if the US is exceptional among nations in having ethical lapses, as if nations and governments in general were paragons of honesty and transparency.

Really? I didn't see that anywhere. You seem to be very good at building strawmen. I count two so far.

Fourth, the idea that opacity and ethical biddability in matters of war are an essential or current characteristic of the US lacks foundaction. Thucydides in his History of the Peleponnesian War argues that nations go to war for three reasons: fear, honor, and to protect their interests. He also asserts that the complexities of statecraft are such that rulers will generally manipulate the public to varying degrees; if the public were a reliable judge of its own interests, governments would not need to be instituted in the first place. It is worth recalling that Athenian society was the cradle of democratic, republican, and constitutional concepts. It initiated war with the Spartans, a monarchical society with a considerably smaller institutional footprint, often cited approvingly for its relative isolationism and ethos of simplicity - but which was feared by the Athenians for its brutality and mindless fanaticism, and which saw foreign relations of any kind as a mere prelude to armed conflict and had structured its entire society around that premise.

What the hell is this Straussian shit? First of all, we aren't at war; no war has been declared. We are currently occupying countries, running an international chain of internment camps, carrying out extrajudicial killings, and engaging in low intensity warfare all over Africa, central and south Asia. So it kinda goes without saying that opacity and ethical biddability are not essential, and are in fact antithetical to our current designs. I don't know what your little story about Athens supposed to be about as democracy has evolved a little since then. Yeah foundation, as in foundation of the Parthenon not the Jefferson Memorial.

Fortunately for humanity the power structures that currently dominate the planet will not be around forever. You can pontificate all you want about civic duty and what not, but the fact of that matter is that all of that is dead, gone, and finished. The Republic is rotting from the inside, a victim of it's own avarice and lust for power. So good luck trying to "fix" anything. I'm going the Carlin route and just going to enjoy the show. And let me tell you some of my fellow mefites have put on a bang up good show in this thread.

So let me be the one(maybe) dissenting voice and say that I am sad that Osama is gone. Every human life is precious. No matter what the crimes one has committed they are never beyond redemption. Even Osama had something he could have contributed given the chance. Now we will never know as his light has been extinguished forever. No human consciousness deserves to be put out with as little care as the snuffing out of a candle. A lesson even Osama could have learned given the chance, and one we as a nation would do well to learn as well. Until we as a species learn to quit using violence and death as a means of resolving differences than I am afraid the prospects for our long term survival are grim indeed. Like I said enjoy the show.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:34 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"This is a bad outcome for Afghans, Pakistanis and Indians. The military-jihadi complex will gain in strength. Pakistan's civilian government will be more powerless. It will only be a facade with which to seek foreign assistance. It will also be the whipping boy, blamed for the worsening state of Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of triumphant militants will need to be given new targets. Compared to the early 1990s, it is far more difficult today---strategically and operationally---to push them across into India. Yet, the interests of the military-jihadi complex and the absence of a miracle job-machine will pose a serious threat to India's national security. We may be, at best, two summers away from an escalation of the proxy war in Kashmir and elsewhere."
posted by vidur at 12:35 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

As for bin Laden: look, I'm not jumping up and down for joy over here, chanting acronyms, or thinking this is the Super Bowl. But a dude who orchestrated the murder of thousands of civilians in the United States and elsewhere, who oversaw attacks against embassies, warships and rival factions, who declared war against the United States, got shot by soldiers. I can't think of a single definition of noncombatant that would apply to this guy.

And he was hardly just an enemy of the US, in which case I might have more mixed feelings. He was an totalitarian theocrat who wanted anyone unwilling to adhere to a narrow, extremist prescription of his religion's views exterminated. No secular society, no non-monotheists, they're all gone. The "wrong sort" of Muslims, Jews and Christians unprepared to live in an Islamic theocracy? Dead. In terms of what he managed to achieve, comparing him to Hitler or Pol Pot or similar big baddies of the 20th century is risible. But what he wanted to achieve, and what he was happy spending tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands or tens of thousands of lives to accomplish? Yeah, his desires were defintely in that leagyue.
posted by rodgerd at 1:08 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

What are some good links to use against people who are either doubting he's dead or are claiming that not only didn't deserve to die but that he might not have had anything to do with 9/11?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 1:11 AM on May 3, 2011

...might not have had anything to do with 9/11?

Maybe he might have released a video saying "It wasn't me!".
posted by gronkpan at 1:19 AM on May 3, 2011

Does the Seal get the petrol powered blender?
posted by rodgerd at 1:21 AM on May 3, 2011

What are some good links to use against people who are either doubting he's dead or are claiming that not only didn't deserve to die but that he might not have had anything to do with 9/11?

I dunno, LOLCATS? Somewhere that just has funny pictures or something. Those people will not be easy to convince. You might as well wait a few weeks until documentary evidence starts filtering out of the WH to be honest (which of course they will then refuse to believe).
posted by longbaugh at 1:23 AM on May 3, 2011

What are some good links that demonstrate evidence that Bin Laden had the first thing to do with 9/11, besides his own taking credit for it well after the fact (after explicitly denying he had anything to do with it first)? I'm asking this honestly, not to be dick.

I have never seen this evidence. It seems as likely as not that the Bush administration needed a boogeyman, and Bin Laden needed the publicity, and they were both all too happy to mutually gloss over the fact that Bin Laden himself really had nothing at all to do with the attacks, except tacit ideological support.
posted by hamandcheese at 1:35 AM on May 3, 2011

South Park wasn't far wrong...
posted by markkraft at 1:38 AM on May 3, 2011

Incidentally - much earlier on the thread someone was asking why Navy SEALs (more specifically DEVGRU) were used in this operation - I've seen some (not-idle) speculation that the reason for that in that JSOC is currently headed by VADM William McRaven and that the current Chairman of the JCS is Admiral Michael McMullen. Then again, other chaps on the special operations grapevines reckon it was SAD/SOG.

From hearing about the helicopters involved it would also appear that 160th SOAR was involved in bringing the strike team in.

It'll all come out in the wash anyway but there's plenty of speculation and knowing nods, winks and tacit confirmation on many websites that deal with military special operations from confirmed operators.
posted by longbaugh at 1:41 AM on May 3, 2011

What are some good links that demonstrate evidence that Bin Laden had the first thing to do with 9/11, besides his own taking credit for it well after the fact (after explicitly denying he had anything to do with it first)? I'm asking this honestly, not to be dick.

http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

can also dig down into: http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&other_al-qaeda_operatives=osamaBinLaden
posted by ollyollyoxenfree at 1:41 AM on May 3, 2011

use against people who are either doubting he's dead

Seems that the catalyst of doubt is that they can't produce the body, because they buried it at sea within hours, and this strikes some people as so bizarre thing to do as to beggar belief.
So maybe the approach would be make the body thing seem obvious instead of weird. The USA knew from before they began that they would do everything they could to prevent this guy ending up revered as a martyr, which means leaving him no grave to mark his deeds, no special monument to become a pilgrimage for fans. That means leaving no body, and doing so before his politically powerful kin could decide to demand the body. Sorry guys, we'd LOVE to do as you ask and hand over the body, but it's already buried! At sea! So you see why can't reclaim it for you! Sorry. But the body is gone respectfully. We gave the guy a correct burial adhering to your customs, and your requirements that it happen quickly, so we hope you have no complaint.

Describe the burial as common-sense USA! USA! pre-emptive military strategic victory!!!1! That's what it is.
posted by -harlequin- at 1:42 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whoops, thought the links would come out as clickable.

Here is the history commons 9/11 project.

Here is the OBL timeline.
posted by ollyollyoxenfree at 1:43 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Just wanted to say that I share the same doubts and for the same reasons that lupus_yonderboy has expressed.

The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, said in 2007 that Osama had already been assassinated by Omar Sheikh.

I don't doubt Osama is dead. It seems likely his son, Hazra, is dead as well. No idea what the motivation for creating any untruth about this or if they are, in fact untruths. I would like more evidence. Photographs, video, something. More than allegedly a body dumped into the ocean with no witnesses.

There have been many inconsistencies in the details that have come out in the last 24 hours. And, ultimately, as lupus_yonderboy has said, no substantial proof.

One inconsistency I was curious about. Is that a smashed computer in the photograph of inside the compound? Is that a satellite dish as well as cables and wires along the outer and inner walls?

The statements in the news say that the inhabitants of the compound had dispensed with electronic devices and Internet connections (Wolf Blitzer, in a suit and tie despite having been at home when the news broke, told us that, while Osama Bin Laden's hideout was a large compound, it lacked many basic amenities. No Internet, no telephones, he said.). It seems slightly odd "Navy SEALs grabbed personal computers, thumb drives, and electronic equipment during the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader."?

OBL's dead half sister was not at Massachusetts General Hospital according to the staff there. DNA evidence is more complicated with a half-sibling ("Since siblings only share 50% of their DNA, half-siblings only share about 25% of their DNA, which means that often many of the markers do not match."). The DNA half sibling test has an accuracy >90% (inclusion) and <1>, not 100% as was stated. "Typically, at least one mother must be tested as well for this to be accurate."

If Bin Laden had kidney disease then wouldn't there be dialysis equipment there?

A neighbor of the compound seems in disbelief.

Just hoping for more evidence is all.
posted by nickyskye at 1:54 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

I think the potential for enemies desecrating his grave required the burial at sea. Dude had enemies. If the goal was to handle his body in accordance with Islam that's the only explanation necessary.

I realize some are saying that it wasn't required by Islamic law/tradition but they uh, seem a bit disingenuous. I am not nearly familiar enough with Islam to say whether there's really grey area there.
posted by polyhedron at 2:01 AM on May 3, 2011

Today's radio show As it Happens features an interview with Pakistan's General Hamid Gul, former head of the Inter Services Intelligence agency.

He spoke quite critically about potential blowback from all this. He seemed to be especially weary when saying that the US has turned OBL into a martyr. He referred to the 'burial at sea' as desecration -- i.e., not at all a respectful Islamic burial. That and other examples of US blundering were listed as bait for retaliation.

In another comment he pointed out that OBL was a sick man who would have likely died soon enough. I have wondered about that -- and about the idea that there might have been alternative reasons for the US raid. What was gained by hunting him down? This feels way too much like "Operation Iraqi Freedom' -- quite theatrical.
posted by Surfurrus at 2:01 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, the twisted part of me hopes we send the bin Laden family a bill for the burial. You know, in accordance with Islam. We're running major deficits, seems necessary enough.
posted by polyhedron at 2:05 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Or just send it to the Saudi Royal family but ya know, those dudes are totally are best buds despite the fact that 17 of the 19 hijackers were from there.
posted by bardic at 2:08 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Having computers inside the compound without internet access would make sense. There is nothing weird about that suggests an inconsistency. They could run a sneakernet through the couriers, thus having a communications/information outlet that would thwart signals intelligence (presumably of course, given state-run Viruses like stuxnet coming about, and whether there are viruses out there that target Islamic extremists).
posted by ollyollyoxenfree at 2:13 AM on May 3, 2011

* "The DNA half sibling test has an accuracy >90% (inclusion) and less than 15% exclusion

Other inconsistencies:

The wife supposedly used to shield himself turned out not to be his wife but another woman and not used as a shield.

Then he had a weapon, was in a 40 minute gun battle but then he didn't have a weapon.

Then he was shot twice in the head (After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured. One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap -- boom, boom -- to the left side of his face.), then a single bullet.

First it was 2 wives arrested, then one wife arrested

Anyway, over the next few weeks, hoping for these to be clarified.
posted by nickyskye at 2:14 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

In another comment he pointed out that OBL was a sick man who would have likely died soon enough.

Yeah, I guess if Kissinger or Milosovic showed up in the Hague, just, you know, cruising, no-one should consider arresting them, because, y'know, they're old and stuff.
posted by rodgerd at 2:21 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

In fact, nobody came or went. And no telephone or Internet lines ran from the compound.

Huh, so I wonder how information was passed along?

Is that a satellite dish in the diagram?
posted by nickyskye at 2:27 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

There have been many inconsistencies in the details that have come out in the last 24 hours.

Look back at any breaking news story in history ever and you'll find that in the first 24 hours after the event you get hundreds of inconsistent details. Too many people saying too many different things, some that have the facts first hand, some that have heard things from people, some who just want attention and are making stuff up.

Any debates over details of this event that happen this early are genuinely pointless. Speculation about what happened or what really happened or what actually TRULY really happened is a fun game but any conclusions reached are closer to fiction than truth because they're based on (definitely) incomplete and (very likely) inaccurate information.

I'm not saying that its not a fun thought exercise, but be very cautious about drawing any long lasting conclusions right now. At best, you'll be wrong, at worst, you'll be the start of a new conspiracy theory, and at the nightmare level, you'll turn into Dennis Miller.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:46 AM on May 3, 2011 [10 favorites]

Look back at any breaking news story in history ever and you'll find that in the first 24 hours after the event you get hundreds of inconsistent details.

Yes, although in this case all the details are coming from a single source. I'm quite amazed at how badly the PR side of things has been handled.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:03 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I'm quite amazed at how badly the PR side of things has been handled."

Spontaneous gatherings at the White House and in NYC at the twin towers' memorial. The desperate bleating of wing-nuts trying to somehow explain how a supposedly "muslim" "kenyan" president managed what a right-wing neocon administration never could. In all likelihood, a huge surge in Obama's popularity numbers (the newest cycle doesn't account for bin Laden's killing).

Yeah, the PR here is totally bad for Obama. If only he'd put on a flight-suit or something.
posted by bardic at 3:16 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Sheikha is not normally a name, but an honorific. So I'd be surprised if the sister's actual name were Sheikha. Osama bin Laden, however, was the only child of his parents' marriage, so there are only half siblings with whom to match data, in any case.

The pictures show a remarkably frugally appointed and constructed home for what is being called a million dollar mansion. A million dollars buys much more than that in Pakistan. It's possible that the money went on special security structures, etc., but my Facebook feed is full of people who want their holiday homes in Abbotabad reassessed by realtors "if that building is worth a million dollars." I didn't understand their point until I saw the pictures.

What looks like a smashed up computer next to the bed could be medical equipment. I see what looks remarkably similar to the mobile dialysis unit my uncle was using in Germany about 7 or 8 years ago.

Of course there are lots of inconsistencies. I wouldn't even expect all of them to resolve themselves. And conspiracy theories will be built around them. And perhaps people a generation or two from now will actually figure out what happened. Maybe. I'm not sure I think speculating a whole lot on the veracity of the US government's account is particularly fruitful, barring the sudden appearance of a great deal of counter-factual evidence.
posted by bardophile at 3:41 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

One of the standard conservative talking points from Limbaugh I've seen bubble up online has been that Obama tried taking too much credit for the strike, as evidenced by his alleged overuse of personal pronouns in the announcement (direct quote: For the record, ladies and gentlemen, in his brief announcement last night President Obama used the word 'I' ten times, the word 'me' three times, the word 'mine' five times, and the word 'my' three times.).

Which sounds nice and damning, if you're inclined to think the president's an egomaniac... until you actually do a word count of the transcript:

I - 8 times
me - 2 times
mine - 0 times
my - 3 times

As opposed to:

our - 47 times
we - 37 times
their - 8 times
us - 7 times
they - 6 times

Christ, what a disingenuous shitstain.
posted by Rhaomi at 3:44 AM on May 3, 2011 [63 favorites]

This is a video dramatisation of the assault on bin Laden's compound. I think I should point out that some of the details are incorrect - for instance, White House accounts say that bin Laden was killed with either two or three bullets, but in this movie he's clearly hit by more. Still, worth watching.
Osama bin Laden get got
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:44 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think we can all agree that the full story will be forthcoming once Taiwanese animators get on the case.
posted by bardic at 3:46 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Yahoo Search Blog has posted a few recent results, mostly about people who tend to be younger.
posted by gman at 3:51 AM on May 3, 2011

But what strikes me most is that I can't express this to anyone outside the relative anonymity of the Internet. The conversation has been so flattened in this country by the wartime atmosphere that I feel like I can't express a nuanced opinion without being labeled a jingo on one side or a traitor on another.

Maybe you are old enough to remember a time (not that far back in the time, 20-25 years more or less) in which the political discussions appeared to be far less shouted, less emotional, more reasoned, far less polarized. Surely arguments could get very heated, but I don't remember hearing so many ad hominems, unsubstantiated insinuations and pointless arguments, such as "is Obama really american?" which don't serve any purpose but in a smear campaign context.

Also, the political discussion was mostly aired just before any election, and then news returned to everyday more or less significant events; quite unlike the present days, in which political opinion is, at least on some channel, pervasive.

Take this Fox News video when O'Reilly and Hume comment on how will the death of Osama affect Obama politically.

It's "artful" in its suggesting a line of tought: Hume concedes that there will be an hike in Obama's polls,but temporary, then he immediately switches to Bush invasion of Iraq, compares and contrast with it so as to downplay the killing of Osama as a minor accomplishment, when compared with Iraq invasion.

He continues by presenting the opinion of a "leftist" group of people as the whole opinion of the american "left"...quite a staggering generalization...and so on and so on, implying that Hillary Clinton has lied...without a shred of evidence...and so on. It's infinitely suggestive and, imho, designed to form an audience and resonate with the present audience, while proving spoonfeed comebacks to the audience.

Consider, for instance, the incessant accusations on Obama (or anybody else, that wouldn't make a difference) of being "soft" against terrorism. Now given that Obama has choosen not to bomb, but rather to send a team of Seals, one has to rationalize away that no "wuss" would have choosen this tactic.

Yet, Hume did exactly that, by suggesting that indeed it was a risky move, had the mission failed it would have been an huge embarassment, maybe carpet bombing the area would have been better, at worst the victims could have been a few pakistanis. Hence, "bad obama", for not taking what appears to be the least risky decision, "bad obama" for taking risks and not being soft enough to avoid it. It's utter nonsense.

Not a word is spent on considering the collaterals of carpet bombing (and that it may have been quite more on an embarassment, had you killed a palaceful of innocents), and the irritating fact that a bombing doesn't leave much DNA to analyze if any, and that it would have been quite difficult to bomb and then go pick up fragments in a faraway country.

None of this is ever considered, it's a lot simpler to just blame him for being soft, and when you can't do that anymore you blame him for taking risky moves. It's an incessant blame fest.

It's really not surprising that discussion has become very polarized and incresingly irrational, far more orchestrated that one would think, and that you are more likely to experience comebacks and either accusation of jingoisms or of being a traitor; that's the standard easy way to back out from an argument, as nuanced opinions don't appear to be clear cut, decisive, and above all are not simple to elaborate - it's far easier to latch to one simple opinion without never having a doubt cross your mind.
posted by elpapacito at 4:21 AM on May 3, 2011 [15 favorites]

Eh, American politics has been a cesspool ever since I've been following it. Anyone pining for the kinder, gentler politics of 25 years ago needs to check the silvering on their rearview mirror. The language changes, sure. But 'unamerican' is a phrase which came into common parlance in the McCarthy hearings. Remember them?
posted by unSane at 4:31 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Look back at any breaking news story in history ever and you'll find that in the first 24 hours after the event you get hundreds of inconsistent details.

Yes, although in this case all the details are coming from a single source.

Only if you think of the government as a monolithic entity. Look, they are slowly debriefing the guys who did the strike. If it is like the evaluation of any other incident involving firearms, everybody's got a differing memory of it, including the people who watched the video feed. They are just piecing it together, and in the interest of being as transparent as possible, they are feeding the press info as it comes in. Just yesterday, we had people here saying how info was coming too slow and refusing to believe anything.

If anything, the lack of consistency on the microscopic details that everyone wants to know about for some reason indicates a lack of a desire to obscure information that does not need to remain classified for security reasons.

Think of it this way: there are probably 30 helmet cam videos, videos from the helicopters, audio recordings from the radios of every SEAL, 8 helo pilots and co pilots, as well as 100 differing memories of the participants and watchers which form the body of knowledge about this strike. In the end, there will never be a definitive account.

Personally, I prefer knowing more now and some fuzziness on the details that everyone getting "the story" one week later.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:35 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

The Republic is rotting from the inside, a victim of it's own avarice and lust for power.

I guess you can hope you get to see it. You sound positively excited about the prospect and seem to be rooting for that outcome.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:47 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Limbaugh Laughs At Media Who Report That He Lavished Praise On Obama Over Bin Laden Killing

I was pleasantly surprised by the earlier report that he'd given Obama due credit. Listening to this, I felt sucker-punched.

What a complete ass.
posted by torticat at 5:10 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

I guess you can hope you get to see it. You sound positively excited about the prospect and seem to be rooting for that outcome.

I think you need to quit your day job as a psychic.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 5:20 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

[For anybody fact-checking my fact-check, I concede that there were actually ten I's, on account of missing two apostrophe'd contractions in my Ctrl+F search. Still: Christ, shistain, etc.]
posted by Rhaomi at 5:25 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe you are old enough to remember a time (not that far back in the time, 20-25 years more or less) in which the political discussions appeared to be far less shouted, less emotional, more reasoned, far less polarized.

In the early years of the republic our politicians shot each other. By the 1850's they were only beating each other with sticks on the floor of the senate. So in some respects mere name-calling is actually progress.
posted by TedW at 5:26 AM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

elpapacito: Hume concedes that there will be an hike in Obama's polls,but temporary, then he immediately switches to Bush invasion of Iraq, compares and contrast with it so as to downplay the killing of Osama as a minor accomplishment, when compared with Iraq invasion.

This brings to mind an interesting contrast: Bush and Obama will both be known for major accomplishments of their first terms, but whereas Bush's 'great' accompliment involved going to war and the directly or indirectly resultant deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, Obama's 'great' accomplishment was to pass legislation intended to help sick people.

For these accomplishments, they both frequently get labeled 'murderer.'
posted by lodurr at 5:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I am old enough to remember a time when there was less partisanship in politics, and I think it's either extremely short-sighted or disingnuous or cynical or all three to claim that the time didn't exist. As recently as the mid-90s it was commonplace to find R-D co-sponsorship on legislation, and commonplace to find people "crossing the aisle" to vote on legislation favored by the other party. (Even the phrase "crossing the aisle" was less commonly used.) Now, those things are the exception, as most votes are very very close to party-line, and rhetoric is essentially eliminationist, and primarily so on the right.

Pretending this isn't true is not helpful. It just buys into the cynicism, which is corrosive to democracy.
posted by lodurr at 5:34 AM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

I believe lodurr is really correct that there was less partisanship in the mid-20th century than there is today. Probably not less than ever, because the 19th century was rife with strong partisanship though sometimes the parties were different, but definitely less than today. American politics has been intentionally manipulated in such a way as to polarize the moderate center that dominated from the 1940s through the early 1970s. It's not just something that happened, it's the result of a strategy; and it is definitely happening, not just a presentist perception.
posted by Miko at 5:46 AM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

am old enough to remember a time when there was less partisanship in politics, and I think it's either extremely short-sighted or disingnuous or cynical or all three to claim that the time didn't exist. As recently as the mid-90s it was commonplace to find R-D co-sponsorship on legislation, and commonplace to find people "crossing the aisle" to vote on legislation favored by the other party. (Even the phrase "crossing the aisle" was less commonly used.) Now, those things are the exception, as most votes are very very close to party-line, and rhetoric is essentially eliminationist...

Deborah Tannen writes about this at some length in her book, The Argument Culture.
posted by bardophile at 5:48 AM on May 3, 2011

Huh, so I wonder how information was passed along?

Couriers! That's how they found him actually. Read upwards for more.

I know the thread is long so it's probably unreasonable to think everyone's read from the beginning. But it's awfully repetitive, animated GIFs and all.
posted by Miko at 5:50 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

You're certainly entitled to feel however you want to feel about this non-event, or not, as you see fit. Your declarations that everyone else should feel that way, too, are absurd and stupid.

No less stupid than your own implications that everyone who lost loved ones in 9/11, across the board, wanted to see Bin Laden dead. You can't know that for certain, not unless you've talked to every last one of them personally.

I'll admit I didn't lose anyone personally, but I did live here in New York on that day; and the most I felt towards Bin Laden was pity. My anger, however, is towards all the other Americans who presume to know what "all victims of 9/11" or "all New Yorkers" must be feeling about this, and towards the other Americans who exploit 9/11 for their own political or financial gain.

I didn't ask you to speak on my behalf when it comes to whether I wanted to see Bin Laden dead. I can do that for myself, thank you.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:19 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

metafilter: awfully repetitive, animated GIFs and all.
posted by Think_Long at 6:20 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Last night's Daily Show opening segment can be seen at Mediaite.
posted by zarq at 6:20 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

No less stupid than your own implications that everyone who lost loved ones in 9/11, across the board, wanted to see Bin Laden dead.

Huh. I'm guessing that they are, to a person, okay with OBL being dead. But no, I haven't talked to them all personally.
posted by torticat at 6:24 AM on May 3, 2011

Can we just stipulate that no-one knows anything for gosh darn certain and be done with this high-school debating society bullshit? This is the real world we're living in, where we deal with overwhelming likelihoods such as the relatives of 9/11 victims probably being quite happy to see Bin Laden dead.

For the record, I don't celebrate his death particularly, but he poked a wasps nest and the wasps (eventually) stung him. Big deal.
posted by unSane at 6:25 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

torticat: I was actually talking to rtha, I thought.

And I'll admit I'm making a distinction between "okay with him being dead" and "actively wanted him dead" or "happy about him being dead." Personally I would have preferred him taken alive and then kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his (hopefully long) life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:27 AM on May 3, 2011

And, my apologies. The "everyone thinks this" thing has always been my big 9/11 sore spot, going back to late 2001 when I'd already started feeling that if I didn't respond to events in a certain prescribed manner, I would be accused of being unPatriotic, unAmerican, or callous or unfeeling or any other manner of bullshit. It's something I still wrestle with a little.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:33 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I know you were talking to rtha; I was just making my own comment.

At any rate, there was nothing prior in the conversation about wanting OBL dead vs wanting him otherwise neutralized.
posted by torticat at 6:35 AM on May 3, 2011

No less stupid than your own implications that everyone who lost loved ones in 9/11, across the board, wanted to see Bin Laden dead.

For chrissake, that's not what I was saying. Shit Parade declares that it's a non-event and unimportant. I'm not trying to speak for every single survivor of 9/11, or trying to say that they're all jumping-up-and-down-woo-hoo-he's-dead! I'm trying to say that it to them, bin Laden's death might actually be an event and important. If it came across as if I were putting words in your mouth, I apologize.

Aside from the personal feelings of people, his death (well, the way he was killed the who did the killing) is certainly an event and important politically and diplomatically - I don't think that's in doubt.
posted by rtha at 6:36 AM on May 3, 2011

If it came across as if I were putting words in your mouth, I apologize.

Assuming you're reading my own apology as well now. I overreacted a bit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:41 AM on May 3, 2011

Bush I won the gulf war,

That does not match my memory of how things played out. I remember those who supported the war being dissatisfied our forces (or the coalition forces, to be more diplomatically precise, though it was certainly seen as GHW Bush's war) didn't go all the way and take out Saddam Hussein and the remaining Republican Guard, and I remember those who opposed the war simply being disgusted from start to finish with the Gulf War, and how the U.S. (presided by an oil executive) rushed to the aid of Kuwaiti oil industry billionaires who exploited foreign workers and oppressed women. The moderate route GHW Bush took, liberating Kuwait and pulling out, left the majority of people unhappy.
posted by aught at 6:43 AM on May 3, 2011

Surfurrus: He spoke quite critically about potential blowback from all this. He seemed to be especially weary when saying that the US has turned OBL into a martyr. He referred to the 'burial at sea' as desecration -- i.e., not at all a respectful Islamic burial. That and other examples of US blundering were listed as bait for retaliation.

He claimed responsibility for murdering 3000 innocent human beings. Civilians. Tried to kill tens of thousands more and was only foiled by circumstances. Did OBL deserve a respectful Islamic burial? I vote no.

Some of my neighbors were quite literally turned to ashes on 9/11. Their remains were blown by the winds throughout the region. Those of us living in Queens and Staten Island woke to find our cars and sidewalks and windows covered in dust. My next-door neighbor was a retired NY police detective. Friends he had served with that day were killed, and their families had no remains to bury. OBL didn't deserve to be treated with more respect than he showed those victims.

Al Queda and other terrorists already manufacture enough justifications to vilify and attack us. Letting OBL go free wasn't going to change that. Nor would killing him. They'd hate us regardless.

It is reasonable for us to want to strike back against the man who, along with his organization, masterminded 3 simultaneous attacks on American soil which killed 3000 American citizens and could potentially have killed upwards of 75,000 and decapitated this country. (Pentagon and White House were the other targets, remember.)

In another comment he pointed out that OBL was a sick man who would have likely died soon enough.

We've been hearing that since at least 1993. Yet 18 years later....

I have wondered about that -- and about the idea that there might have been alternative reasons for the US raid. What was gained by hunting him down?

For generations, America was a monolith, separated from attack by two large seas. The 9/11 attacks showed our weaknesses. This is a warning signal to the world that we won't let anyone who tries to mass-murder Americans get away with it.
posted by zarq at 6:51 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

And, my apologies. The "everyone thinks this" thing has always been my big 9/11 sore spot,

I hear that. *hugs it out*
posted by rtha at 6:53 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Gen Hameed Gul is a total nutjob. He's furious about all of this because he wants to distract people from all the egg on his face from being the genius who thought funding and training the mujahideen in Afghanistan would be good for Pakistan.
posted by bardophile at 6:54 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yes, although in this case all the details are coming from a single source.

If you look through the comment "detailing inconsistencies" you'll see that those that are actually cited are from a wide variety of sources, which I think is exactly the point some are making. The speed at which the Internet propagates news stories (with or without proper citation, with or without mistakes in summarization of the facts) produces problems in and of itself, even were the ultimate source of information a single one (which it's probably not, if various people in the White House, the U.S. Armed Forces, and Congress are all putting out information).
posted by aught at 6:55 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Salman Rushdie: Pakistan's Deadly Game
posted by Pendragon at 6:59 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I believe that by using multiple relatives and a touch of math, you can get a DNA match at around 99% or higher.
posted by rosswald at 6:59 AM on May 3, 2011

People upthread were imagining Jon Stewart's first post-OBL monologue. Imagine no more.

Sweeeeeet.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:04 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

elpapacito: Yet, Hume did exactly that, by suggesting that indeed it was a risky move, had the mission failed it would have been an huge embarassment, maybe carpet bombing the area would have been better, at worst the victims could have been a few pakistanis.

I watched the video because I couldn't believe that a mainstream media source would say that in a developed country, but there it is. There are only two options here - a) he believes this to be true, or b) he is saying it because it suits a certain political purpose.

Neither of these paint a very healthy future for American media, nor for the society that uncritically internalizes messages like this one. Ignoring the moral, diplomatic and even pragmatic effects of carpet bombing a major military town near the capital of an "ally" nation requires a special kind of foolishness.
posted by vanar sena at 7:05 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Bardophile, I'd like to also chime in with thanks. Your perspective has been helpful and quite illuminating.
posted by zarq at 7:07 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

I think the powers of DNA matching are being misunderstood in this situation. If you have a single relative who should have X number of shared genes by ancestry along with X more, by chance that says something about the likelihood of having a similar number of matches you would have with a random individual (let's say 1%). But, they also have someone here with Bin Laden's size and appearance in a heavily guarded compound. This is not a random individual. You would be weighing against the possibility that Bin Laden had a security double - a possibility - against the odds that Bin Laden had a security double with X allele matches - a virtual impossibility. (The random sorted genes that would be in common heredity are not going to give you a person with the same appearance.)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 7:14 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Deputy editor of Dawn (Pakistan's leading English daily) weighs in: more than anyone else failing or insulting us, it is our own security establishment that takes the cake each time.
posted by bardophile at 7:18 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm getting a hinky 'security verification required' page on that link, Bardophile.
posted by unSane at 7:20 AM on May 3, 2011

He claimed responsibility for murdering 3000 innocent human beings. Civilians. Tried to kill tens of thousands more and was only foiled by circumstances. Did OBL deserve a respectful Islamic burial? I vote no.

"Some people did not like this ceremonious style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite." -- WSC
posted by mokuba at 7:23 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

This has probably already been posted somewhere above, but it's just now blowing up on my facebook news feed (thanks, ultraconservative high school friends!). Fox News reports that we found OBL because of how good a job Bush and Cheney did torturing.
posted by phunniemee at 7:25 AM on May 3, 2011

So let me be the one(maybe) dissenting voice and say that I am sad that Osama is gone. Every human life is precious. No matter what the crimes one has committed they are never beyond redemption.

A word to the wise, AElfwine Evenstar; this doesn't make you sound enlightened, it makes you sound like a prat.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:33 AM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

unSane: The Dawn website is getting hammered. Can you get past the security verification? It's a legitimate thing.
posted by bardophile at 7:35 AM on May 3, 2011

Fox News reports that we found OBL because of how good a job Bush and Cheney did torturing.

I have been hearing a lot of that too, but the most detailed article I have seen (which I can't find right now in the avalanche of news stories about this) says that although the detainee was waterboarded, he actually gave up the information via standard interrogation techniques.
posted by TedW at 7:35 AM on May 3, 2011

It's probably posted upthread, but it's not clear if torture actually got the intel. Rummsfeld, probably the biggest torture advocate in the Bush Administration, backed down on the talking point.

Apparently, the guy they got the intel from was waterboarded, but then later gave up the intel durring regular interrogation. It's really not conclusive evidence either way, as you can argue waterboarding did nothing and traditional interrogation worked, or that waterboarding damaged his resolve to keep secrets, making interrogation easier.

Of course, for me, it doesn't matter if torture is effective. We're better than that. We have values, and we can't just give them up because it's convenient. For all the right's been talking about liberty and values, they don't seem to give much of a crap when we give them up under the pretense of fighting terror.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:39 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here it is:

Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.

If true, it looks to me like waterboarding was a waste of time and we could have shaved months off the hunt if we had stuck to tried and true interrogation methods in the first place.
posted by TedW at 7:40 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fox News reports that we found OBL because of how good a job Bush and Cheney did torturing.

Forever after I shall refer to it as the "pickle jar defence".
posted by longbaugh at 7:43 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

If Bush was trying to open the pickle jar, maybe he would have got the job done if he wasn't trying to open the spaghetti sauce and jam jars after the American people made it clear they wanted pickles. Also, he should have wiped up that mess of sauce and jam on the floor before Obama came in to clean up the kitchen.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:48 AM on May 3, 2011 [10 favorites]

Twitter feed of an AP reporter who has been granted access to the Bin-Laden compound.
posted by ob at 7:51 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

american foreign policy as a 5 year old run amok in the kitchen - that actually explains a lot
posted by pyramid termite at 7:52 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel like at this point, the right's attempts to spin this aren't going to work so well. They're preaching to the choir so that their base doesn't have to feel embarrassed. Low-information voters and independents are going to see this as Obama finishing the job Bush couldn't do, and there's not much the right can do to change that. Obama is definitely going to see a spike in approval ratings, and it'll be hard for Republicans to argue in the presidential election that Obama is soft on terror. While they can say "He should have just bombed the building" or whatever, the fact is Obama actually got the job done.

The election still isn't certain, and the GOP might be able to win if they get a candidate who isn't too far right or unexciting, but they have to admit this is a major achievement they can't explain or spin away like they did with healthcare reform and just about everything else.
posted by mccarty.tim at 7:55 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

"how is this considered adult conversation? "Sheeple" it seems will never go out of style on metafilter. and my statements about this being a non-event don't seem banal based on the general reaction that they are so unexpected as to be disbelieved that they are genuine. "

Sorry, duder, you gotta actually bring something worth discussing in order to get an adult conversation. And you're both mischaracterizing the reaction — the vast majority pretty clearly believes them to be genuine — and seem to be a poor judge of the banality of your opinions. We all know that this is mostly symbolic. But symbols matter.

"I'm not trying to especially abrasive, just blunt."

Yeah because you are totally speaking difficult truths to power, oh bluntmeister. Guess what? Blunt's often stupid. You're coming across stupid. Jus' bein' blunt, dawg.

"We talk about hand-wringing, seems some mefites need hand-holding as well."

Seems to you, because you have ego invested in being a contrarian. Nobody needs hand holding here, except for the moderate service I'm doing for you by letting you know that your arguments are just as shallow as the ones you think you're arguing against. Further, it's not like you have a stunning insight that sets you up as the hand-holder.

"Yes I have a different opinion, sorry it is upsetting"

It's not tremendously upsetting, though it's pretty obvious you want it to be. Everything about your comments is kinda "trying too hard," dude. Sorry if that's upsetting. Aren't rhetorical non-apologies fun?

"but stop for a moment and think, how people are angry and killing each other because their angry everyone doesn't agree with them?"

lol wut

kumbaya.gif
posted by klangklangston at 7:56 AM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

This event ranks slightly below your favorite team winning the superbowl or what have you.
I'm a Vikings fan. Could you give me something realistic to compare it to?
posted by kirkaracha at 7:59 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Apparently, the guy they got the intel from was waterboarded, but then later gave up the intel durring regular interrogation

This makes total sense to me.

The guy who's torturing you? Fuck him, you're pissed and the only way you can win is by keeping something, anything from him.

The guy who's speaking softly, shooting the breeze, passing you cigs and Cherry Coke (Damn you infidels and your tasty liquid poison)? Sure, you'll pass on info: "Oh yeah, I was Bin Laden's courier and man, let me tell you what an asshole he was! I would spend days going through mountains and cities, looking for tails (I saw you guys at the border, you totally need to change your guy there, so obvious), keeping low and when I finally show up, is there hot coffee or a meal waiting? No, it's always straight to questions and briefing. I'm down with the cause, but would it kill the guy to put on some coffee? Troop morale, hello?! Christ, that reminds me of this one safehouse in Berlin, down on the west side, near this great bagel shop...."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:05 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

This makes total sense to me.

The guy who's torturing you? Fuck him, you're pissed and the only way you can win is by keeping something, anything from him.

The guy who's speaking softly, shooting the breeze, passing you cigs and Cherry Coke (Damn you infidels and your tasty liquid poison)? Sure, you'll pass on info: "Oh yeah, I was Bin Laden's courier and man, let me tell you what an asshole he was! I would spend days going through mountains and cities, looking for tails (I saw you guys at the border, you totally need to change your guy there, so obvious), keeping low and when I finally show up, is there hot coffee or a meal waiting? No, it's always straight to questions and briefing. I'm down with the cause, but would it kill the guy to put on some coffee? Troop morale, hello?! Christ, that reminds me of this one safehouse in Berlin, down on the west side, near this great bagel shop...."

And there's the rub. Are you nicer and more open with the "standard" interrogator once you've spent time with the asshole? Remember that when KSM was captured and subsequently questioned, the only thing that came out of his mouth was a demand for a lawyer.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:07 AM on May 3, 2011

msalt writes "Nobody said it wasn't encrypted. But even so, they may get some real world data on those descriptions that 'it would take all of the nation's universities" computers two years to break such and such a cipher.' Assuming there's no security flaw or back door."

It's not a treasure trove of data if it is encrypted; it's just line noise equivalent to the output of a true random number generator.

BungaDunga writes "Not that there might be some other thing- like if any of the computers were on at the time, and were kept on, thereby leaving the passphrase in memory somewhere."

Possibility but it was 1AM.

mokuba writes "(he's probably safe in OR unless the idiot progressives decide to split the vote like they did up north today)."

Us idiots up north don't have a two party system and many of us like it that way especially compared to sub optimal results coming out of the state's system.

zarq writes "He claimed responsibility for murdering 3000 innocent human beings. Civilians. Tried to kill tens of thousands more and was only foiled by circumstances. Did OBL deserve a respectful Islamic burial? I vote no. "

What's the other option zarq? Head on a pike on the white house lawn? Plasticized and paraded around the nations malls like the Stanley Cup? Cremated and used to fertilize the flowers at the WTC site? Tossed in a dumpster somewhere?

Respect costs nothing, garners goodwill and I don't see a better option.

zarq writes "For generations, America was a monolith, separated from attack by two large seas. The 9/11 attacks showed our weaknesses. This is a warning signal to the world that we won't let anyone who tries to mass-murder Americans get away with it."

As long as you are willing to live with the equivalent blow back from all the innocents the US has directly and via proxy by funding blown to smithereens around the world in even just the last 15 years that seems fine. Sounds like a bad trade to me though.
posted by Mitheral at 8:21 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

And there's the rub.

There's no rub. Torture isn't that productive in terms of getting information.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:25 AM on May 3, 2011

About the encryption: The NSA has an insanely good reputation on cracking codes and stuff. And there's conspiracy theories (that I don't remember if they've been proven or not) of NSA agents adding backdoors to comercial encryption software and security holes to open source encryption software by acting as moles in the OSS community.

What are the chances NSA could bluff that they decrypted the data, but they won't release it because it's confidential, and then cause Al Qaeda to give up the plans detailed in the data? Presumably, that would mean Al Qaeda would lose a lot of planning and resources, meaning they would have to start over. Or would Al Qaeda try to call the bluff and go through with the plans anyway?

I'm assuming the data's encrypted and the backdoors/security holes don't exist for Al Qaeda's choice of encryption. And that they didn't make the password hunter2.
posted by mccarty.tim at 8:28 AM on May 3, 2011

So... 2450 comments (this one is 2451, I think.) Is this a MeFi record?
posted by drhydro at 8:30 AM on May 3, 2011

The only way the Republicans would have stopped Bin Laden is if the memo stated "Bin Ladin determined to strike in Wisconsin".
posted by longbaugh at 8:32 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

So... 2450 comments (this one is 2451, I think.) Is this a MeFi record?

5555 comments.
posted by phunniemee at 8:35 AM on May 3, 2011

2450 comments (this one is 2451, I think.) Is this a MeFi record?

It has a long way to go still, but with the speed it reached 2K, it has potential.
posted by yeti at 8:35 AM on May 3, 2011

There's no rub. Torture isn't that productive in terms of getting information.

I agree with that statement. The Bush Administration has admitted to waterboarding 3 people before ending the practice, probably because its value was questionable and the controversy was probably more damaging than any info gleaned from the practice. "Enhanced" interrogations continued at black sites, however.

The fact remains that KSM only gave up valuable information after being waterboarded, and not before. That is a fact. Would he have given it up otherwise? I don't know. Maybe one day we can visit another universe and find out. No one can claim certainty on this point, not even a talented FBI interrogator.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:36 AM on May 3, 2011

> So... 2450 comments (this one is 2451, I think.) Is this a MeFi record?

5555 comments.

The topic of that all-time record thread really, really displeases me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:38 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

2450 comments (this one is 2451, I think.) Is this a MeFi record?

It has a long way to go still, but with the speed it reached 2K, it has potential.
posted by yeti at 10:35 AM on May 3

Not if it continues to devolve like it's been for the last half of the thread :P
posted by symbioid at 8:41 AM on May 3, 2011

zarq writes "For generations, America was a monolith, separated from attack by two large seas. The 9/11 attacks showed our weaknesses. This is a warning signal to the world that we won't let anyone who tries to mass-murder Americans get away with it."

Mitheral writes: As long as you are willing to live with the equivalent blow back from all the innocents the US has directly and via proxy by funding blown to smithereens around the world in even just the last 15 years that seems fine. Sounds like a bad trade to me though.

Thank you for that, Mitheral.

I am bowing out of this thread now. It feels like the tone has turned to adolescent chest thumping. I cannot enjoy reading or discussing minutia about military tactics, the death scene, weaponry and so on. And I cannot enjoy watching humane questioners being dismissed with such jingoism and 'patriotism'. I'm having flashbacks to fist-pumping, bushite love-it-or-leave-it Amurica.
posted by Surfurrus at 8:41 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

It has a long way to go still, but with the speed it reached 2K, it has potential.

Nah, the prospect of a live Sarah Palin in the White House was way more terrifying and therefor discussion worthy than that of a dead OBL in the sea.
posted by quin at 8:41 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

The topic of that all-time record thread really, really displeases me.

I think bin Ladin makes me unhappier than Palin, but yeah. Why don't we have epic longboats in monkey-riding-pig-video threads?
posted by shakespeherian at 8:42 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

What's the other option zarq? Head on a pike on the white house lawn? Plasticized and paraded around the nations malls like the Stanley Cup? Cremated and used to fertilize the flowers at the WTC site? Tossed in a dumpster somewhere?

What's with the hyperbole? Relax.

If you had looked closely, the complaint I was responding to was that dumping his body at sea was not a respectful Islamic burial. I'm simply saying that dumped at sea is fine with me.

Respect costs nothing, garners goodwill and I don't see a better option.

Yes, respect most certainly costs us something. Respect should be earned. Otherwise, the message becomes, "In the end, even though they killed Osama Bin Laden they treated him well, acknowledging the respect due him as a holy warrior who was fighting a just and righteous struggle against the enemies of Islam."

Garners goodwill from whom? Bin Laden's supporters?

As long as you are willing to live with the equivalent blow back from all the innocents the US has directly and via proxy by funding blown to smithereens around the world in even just the last 15 years that seems fine. Sounds like a bad trade to me though.

Again, hyperbole.

It hasn't been 15 years since 9/11. I get the feeling you're reading more into my comment than is there, and are grinding axes that have nothing to do with what I said.

I was responding to the question: "What was to be gained by hunting him down?" and the question of whether the US had alternate motives in doing so.

We didn't invade Iraq to go after OBL.

Invading Afghanistan seemed reasonable (at least initially before the Bush administration screwed it up,) considering that the Taliban had given him a platform from which to build and direct terrorist activities.

This was a well-thought out surgical attack on a single house that clearly minimized potential casualties.
posted by zarq at 8:44 AM on May 3, 2011

Why don't we have epic longboats in monkey-riding-pig-video threads?

Same reason we can't have nice things in general: human nature.
posted by aramaic at 8:45 AM on May 3, 2011

Nah, the prospect of a live Sarah Palin in the White House was way more terrifying and therefor discussion worthy than that of a dead OBL in the sea.

Yep.

Why don't we have epic longboats in monkey-riding-pig-video threads?

They aren't world changing events.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:46 AM on May 3, 2011

This event ranks slightly below your favorite team winning the superbowl or what have you.

I'm a Vikings fan. Could you give me something realistic to compare it to?

I'm a Lions fan. What's a "Super Bowl"?

I'm a Packers fan. A Super Bowl is this annual event that we occasionally go to. It happens not long after you lose your last game of the year. Winning is pretty great.

It is indeed better than a Bin Laden killing.
posted by Bonzai at 8:48 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

The guy who's torturing you? Fuck him, you're pissed and the only way you can win is by keeping something, anything from him.

The guy who's speaking softly, shooting the breeze, passing you cigs and Cherry Coke

Good Cop,Bad Cop? Here is an honest question. Is the good Cop as effective without the threat of the Bad Cop?
posted by Ad hominem at 8:50 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It has a long way to go still, but with the speed it reached 2K, it has potential.
posted by yeti at 10:35 AM on May 3

Not if it continues to devolve like it's been for the last half of the thread :P

Well, then, allow me to spark a conversation:

YOU'RE A WHORE!
posted by grubi at 8:52 AM on May 3, 2011

HA
posted by clavdivs at 8:52 AM on May 3, 2011

Why don't we have epic longboats in monkey-riding-pig-video threads?

They aren't world changing events.

Says you.
posted by grubi at 8:53 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm a Packers fan. A Super Bowl is this annual event that we occasionally go to. It happens not long after you lose your last game of the year.

To the Lions.
posted by grubi at 8:53 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is the good Cop as effective without the threat of the Bad Cop?
That is a great question. I would say no.
posted by clavdivs at 8:54 AM on May 3, 2011

i just hope they didn't bury him in the radioactive waters off japan. i don't think the world is ready for Osama Bin Zilla
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 8:55 AM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

*pity "heh"*
posted by entropicamericana at 8:57 AM on May 3, 2011

After seeing the diagram on the front of the NYT I'd say there was a clear lesson here for terrorist safehouse designers vis-a-vis not putting a bloody great Helicopter freindly courtyard out front.
posted by Artw at 9:01 AM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

Yeah. That's where they should have put the pool.
posted by Floydd at 9:02 AM on May 3, 2011

And risk a submarine attack? I don't think so!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:03 AM on May 3, 2011 [17 favorites]

Why don't supervillains ever get lair design right? It's always something.
posted by grubi at 9:04 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

Bin Laden Dead, Torture Debate Lives On
posted by homunculus at 9:05 AM on May 3, 2011

Closing Pandora's Box: Obama should use Osama Bin Laden's death to declare victory and end the legal war on terror.
posted by homunculus at 9:09 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

If you had looked closely, the complaint I was responding to was that dumping his body at sea was not a respectful Islamic burial. I'm simply saying that dumped at sea is fine with me.

The irony is, there is an exception to the "dumped at sea is not a respectful Islamic burial", as Lobster mitten pointed out -- and that is when there is enough of a chance that the "enemies" of the deceased could exhume and "desecrate" the corpse. In Bin Laden's case, I'd say there certainly is a not insignificant chance of that.

In fact, the issue of whether or not this is "respectful" is a subject of some debate amongst different Muslim groups right now -- and those who say it's acceptable are indeed citing that point amongst their arguments, I believe.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:10 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hey Sir Elton! I have an awesome "Candle In The Wind" idea for you!

"Sandals in the Bin" according to a text I just received.
posted by hardcode at 9:10 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Why don't supervillains ever get lair design right? It's always something.

Hey, at least this one wasn't under a volcano.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:14 AM on May 3, 2011

i just hope they didn't bury him in the radioactive waters off japan. i don't think the world is ready for Osama Bin Zilla.

Don't you mean, Osama Fin Laden?
posted by NationalKato at 9:14 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

What was the alternative to burial at sea, given that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia refused to allow burial, and that Islamic tradition only gives you 24 hours? Armed, forced burial in Pakistan? Giving his body to the Taliban? Bury him in the US? Serious question, to anyone disagreeing with burial at sea.
posted by msalt at 9:22 AM on May 3, 2011

It's not that torture never gets reliable information. It's just that it is the stupidest and bluntest way to get actionable information. It is like throwing free throws while wearing a blindfold and facing away from the net. Long term sophisticated interrogation gets high quality information. Torture is just for making sadists feel good.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:25 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why don't we have epic longboats in monkey-riding-pig-video threads?
They aren't world changing events.

Tell that to the pig.
posted by aught at 9:25 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Hey, at least this one wasn't under a volcano.

Yeah, I could never see Bin Laden getting along with Malcolm Lowry's hyper-alcoholic consul.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:28 AM on May 3, 2011

Torture is just for making sadists feel good.

Why shouldn't I feel good?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:28 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

There's always another sadist higher up who likes seeing you suffer.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

No, definitely Osaka Binn Rogen.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:30 AM on May 3, 2011

There's always another sadist higher up who likes seeing you suffer.

It's sadists all the way down.
posted by grubi at 9:33 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

After seeing the diagram on the front of the NYT I'd say there was a clear lesson here for terrorist safehouse designers vis-a-vis not putting a bloody great Helicopter freindly courtyard out front.

And what kind of self respecting terrorist holes up on the top floor of a three story building with no escape route. That's just stupid and lazy.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:34 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the cosmos is basically a boot on a human face on a boot on a human face on a boot on a human face, forever.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:34 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sadists? What do they have to be sad about?
posted by shakespeherian at 9:35 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

A word to the wise, AElfwine Evenstar; this doesn't make you sound enlightened, it makes you sound like a prat.

Wasn't trying to sound enlightened just giving my opinion, but thanks for the personal attack. You'll excuse me if I don't take your "word to the wise" worth a grain of salt as you seem to be incapable of expressing it without making it personal(which last time I checked was against he guidelines).

I don't think that affirming the value of all human life and stating that we need to change the way things are done is prattish. I am not alone in fearing for the fate of our species if we don't make some serious changes in the way we interact. Did OBL deserve death? No I don't think so as I don't believe in the death penalty. I think you will find that a great many people support this position whether they have voiced their opinions here or not. In fact most developed nations have done away with the death penalty. So I don't think I'm going out on too long of a limb to argue that Osama should not have been killed outright. Now it is entirely possible that this outcome was impossible, but unfortunately unless the handycam footage is released we will never know.

A word to the wise, october surprise; personal attacks don't make you sound enlightened, they make you sound boorish.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:35 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

US lawmakers accuse Pakistan of 'double game' on bin Laden -- "Incredulous Congress members ask: How could authorities not know terror chief was living among them?"
posted by ericb at 9:37 AM on May 3, 2011

Sadists? What do they have to be sad about?

There's so much pain and suffering in the world. Who has time to enjoy it all?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:37 AM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

Inside the SEAL team that 'doesn't exist' -- "'Quiet professionals' make up the fabled SEAL Team Six that reportedly killed bin Laden."
posted by ericb at 9:38 AM on May 3, 2011

it's still no reason to celebrate. This was like having to put down a rabid dog

So I'm the only one who cheers at the end of Old Yeller? Okay - good to know.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:41 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, said in 2007 that Osama had already been assassinated by Omar Sheikh.

Why would she have been any more trustworthy than anyone else? She produced no evidence, and bin Laden kept releasing tapes after she said this.

I don't doubt Osama is dead. It seems likely his son, Hazra, is dead as well. No idea what the motivation for creating any untruth about this or if they are, in fact untruths. I would like more evidence. Photographs, video, something. More than allegedly a body dumped into the ocean with no witnesses.

What would photographs tell you? What would video tell you? If the presumption is that the government is going to lie about this, then what's to stop them from faking evidence with trivial ease?

There have been many inconsistencies in the details that have come out in the last 24 hours. And, ultimately, as lupus_yonderboy has said, no substantial proof.

Except for the fact that the AQ rep from the Arabian Peninsula confirmed the death in the AFP article.

The statements in the news say that the inhabitants of the compound had dispensed with electronic devices and Internet connections (Wolf Blitzer, in a suit and tie despite having been at home when the news broke, told us that, while Osama Bin Laden's hideout was a large compound, it lacked many basic amenities. No Internet, no telephones, he said.). It seems slightly odd "Navy SEALs grabbed personal computers, thumb drives, and electronic equipment during the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader."?

You contradict yourself. None of those articles state that there were no electronic devices in his compound. They only say that there were no Internet connections and no telephone lines.

Just hoping for more evidence is all.

What evidence would convince you? Why is a photograph more inherently trustworthy than Obama having an enormous press conference on it?
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:41 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Have you looked into Atheism? I can send you some reading material.

I identify as an atheist follower of Jesus, actually. I don't believe in God, but I think the whole "love your neighbor, feed the hungry, give your money to the poor" thing makes a whole lot of sense.
posted by EarBucket at 9:42 AM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

"Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.

Weapons are the tools of fear;
a decent man will avoid them
except in the direst necessity
and, if compelled, will use them
only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value.
If the peace has been shattered,
how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself.
He doesn't wish them personal harm.
Nor does he rejoice in victory.
How could he rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral."

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 31 (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
posted by OverlappingElvis at 9:42 AM on May 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

"Incredulous Congress members ask: How could authorities not know terror chief was living among them?"

Congress is shocked -- shocked -- to find that terrorism is going on here.
posted by steambadger at 9:46 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Islamic traditions regarding burial are similar to Jewish ones. A burial is supposed to happen as soon as possible, preferably within 24 hours. However, in modern times Muslim and Jewish burials do happen later than 24 hours if a body needs to be transported a long distance to the gravesite. I do not know if that would be considered unacceptable and/or disrespectful to orthodox Muslims.

The 24-hour tradition in both religions is there to prevent the body from rotting before it is buried. Also, Jewish prayers of mourning (mostly) focus on the living, not the deceased, and in Islam, emotional displays over the deceased (wailing, etc.,) are considered inappropriate. I've heard all cited as reasons why a body is buried rapidly.
posted by zarq at 9:47 AM on May 3, 2011

Q. Why did the Congressperson let the Terrorist go through the gates of hell first?

A. Professional courtesy.
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:49 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

ericb writes "'Incredulous Congress members ask: How could authorities not know terror chief was living among them?'"

If there weren't dozens of well known people currently evading arrest in the US these questions would carry a lot more water.
posted by Mitheral at 9:49 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

None of those articles state that there were no electronic devices in his compound

That's right, and it would be just a piece of cake to review documents, write plans, look at photos and diagrams, watch videos, and give orders to millions using nothing other than a thumbdrive. Or paper, which worked for every general ever on earth up until the invention of the telegraphy.
posted by Miko at 9:53 AM on May 3, 2011

The story of the Mexican “anchor baby” Navy SEAL that captured Osama bin Laden
posted by zarq at 9:55 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

If there weren't dozens of well known people currently evading arrest in the US these questions would carry a lot more water.

How many of them were involved in acts of mass murder not sanctioned by the USG?
posted by longbaugh at 9:56 AM on May 3, 2011

Inconsistencies or lack of clarity about details cont'd:

US holds photos of slain bin Laden, weighs release: Osama bin Laden, killed with a precision shot above his left eye

Here it says the photograph depicts OBL was shot on the side of the head.

U.S. officials say the photographic evidence shows bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull.

He was also shot in the chest, they said.

Brennan [ President Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan] asked the question that was reverberating around the world: "How did Osama bin Laden stay at that compound for six years or so and be undetected?" - I thought the house/compound was built five years ago.

U.S. forces found 23 children, nine women, a bin Laden courier who had unwittingly led the U.S. to its target, a son of bin Laden who was also slain, and more.

The only information about what occurred inside the compound has come from American officials, much of it provided under condition of anonymity.

The only information has come from one source, American officials, not many sources.

Obama and his national security team monitored the strike, watching and listening nervously and in near silence from the Situation Room as it all unfolded.

In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid

So it was Khalid, not Hamza. It was said elsewhere that his son, Hamza, was killed.

Bin Laden's wife was shot in the calf but survived, a U.S. official said. Also killed were the courier, another al-Qaida facilitator and an unidentified woman, officials said. His wife not killed, not used as shield as previously reported.

Some people found at the compound were left behind when the SEALs withdrew and were turned over to Pakistani authorities who quickly took over control of the site, officials said. They identified the trusted courier as Kuwaiti-born Sheikh Abu Ahmed, who had been known under the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

One of Osama bin Laden's wives and as many as eight children are in Pakistani custody—including a 12- or 13-year-old daughter who reportedly saw Navy SEALs shoot her father and confirmed it was in fact bin Laden who had been killed.

No idea where the author if this came up with the idea: It was Osama bin Laden’s men Abu jandal who killed shot two bullets in his head.

Two couriers living in the compound, not one. These were believed to be two al-Qaeda couriers who lived at the compound, along with their families, and an adult son of bin Laden. A woman being used as a shield by one of the al-Qaeda men during the firefight was also killed and two other women wounded.
posted by nickyskye at 9:58 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you want to torture a masochist, stop torturing a masochist. But then again, they might like that. (So confusing.)
posted by grubi at 10:00 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The fact remains that KSM only gave up valuable information after being waterboarded, and not before. That is a fact. Would he have given it up otherwise? I don't know. Maybe one day we can visit another universe and find out. No one can claim certainty on this point, not even a talented FBI interrogator.

Therefore, people using this as the basis of 'torture got us bin Laden' shouldn't do it.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:02 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The story of the Mexican “anchor baby” Navy SEAL that captured Osama bin Laden

Lovely, let's link to all the members of the super secret team!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:03 AM on May 3, 2011

I don't believe in God, but I think the whole "love your neighbor, feed the hungry, give your money to the poor" thing makes a whole lot of sense.

Don't forget the very applicable in this situation "love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek."
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:03 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I get the feeling the inconsistencies, this early in a story that's being slowly released, are just the result of the "fog of war" and conjecture from people in the media hearing little details and trying to piece together a story.

If we don't have a straight story in a month, then we worry.
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:03 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lovely, let's link to all the members of the super secret team!

Sure! There was Frozone, Mr Incredible...
posted by grubi at 10:05 AM on May 3, 2011

Oh and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's always a good rule of thumb.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:05 AM on May 3, 2011

Lovely, let's link to all the members of the super secret team!

When I see further stories, I'll post them.
posted by zarq at 10:06 AM on May 3, 2011

do unto others as you would have them do unto you

When I become a mass muderer, please kill me.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:08 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

This will probably be soon, the way my day is going. So, you know: be prepared.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:09 AM on May 3, 2011

Don't forget the very applicable in this situation "love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek."

"Love your enemies" doesn't mean "just go ahead and let your enemies keep directing terrorist activity that hurts people."
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:09 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The story of the Mexican “anchor baby” Navy SEAL that captured Osama bin Laden

Lovely, let's link to all the members of the super secret team!

Well if it turns out to be true (looks like the source is the Parents saying they were approached by soldiers carrying a recognition flag) it's huge news, and thank you Rubén Mejía. That is a huge story and a compelling narrative can be shared about why people should really get over themselves regarding immigration. It calls to mind stories of those without civil rights fighting and dying for their country in years gone by.

And if over the next year and a half that story can be told of how he was an integral part, it would be very useful in diminishing the bs. But I'm not sure it's true (yet), and his role (it says he saw the body on the way out of the building) may not have been integral enough for that narrative to have the proper effect.
posted by cashman at 10:10 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Therefore, people using this as the basis of 'torture got us bin Laden' shouldn't do it.

If we torture our captives, it doesn't really matter how frequent or infrequent we do it, or whether one instance of many acts of torture led to OBL or not. The line was crossed.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:13 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

In fact, you know what? Don't even wait. Just kill me now. You can even send in your second or third best team. They don't even need to be super secret. Or really, an incompetant, obvious team will do just fine, too. ROTC, maybe? I'll wait right here in my office, hiding behind one of my ~~wives~~ sockpuppets.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:13 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

his role...may not have been integral enough for that narrative to have the proper effect.

I know what you mean, and I agree, but I'm deeply amused by the idea of some sofa-bound they-took-our-jerbs Republican snorting at the idea that this Navy SEAL Team Six member was integral enough to the mission of killing of OBL for him to be worthy of respect.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:13 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"The Navy Seal story does appear to be a hoax. We regret the error."
posted by cashman at 10:17 AM on May 3, 2011

"Love your enemies" doesn't mean "just go ahead and let your enemies keep directing terrorist activity that hurts people."

Well if you read the gospels that's exactly what it means. Anyways I was just commenting on Earbuckets comment about being an atheist follower of Jesus and the commandments applicable to this situation.

In fact, you know what? Don't even wait. Just kill me now.

Well if you are so intent on dying you don't have to wait for someone else to do the job for you. Disclaimer: I'm not seriously suggesting that you should kill yourself. Mefimail me if you are considering this course of action and I will try and talk you down.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:19 AM on May 3, 2011

Doh! Ah well.
posted by zarq at 10:19 AM on May 3, 2011

zarq: "The 24-hour tradition in both religions is there to prevent the body from rotting before it is buried. "

Hmm, that's an interesting point. So, it's more about the ritual cleanliness thingy, right?

So, if they buried him AFTER 24 hours, and it was THEY who were around his corpse (as opposed to upright decent Salafi, natch), then wouldn't it be the kufr infidels who are tainted by a rotting corpse then?
posted by symbioid at 10:22 AM on May 3, 2011

Just to be clear, it doesn't even warrant discussion, if someone managed to make it onto Seal Team Six and get tasked with going on a mission like this, they are an integral member of the team regardless if they were in the house, guarding the way out, or serving some other on-the-ground function.

With small teams tactics like that, everyone is integral.
posted by quin at 10:23 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

They should try refrigeration. Meat can last a long time at low temps.
posted by grubi at 10:24 AM on May 3, 2011

"With small teams tactics like that, everyone is integral."
posted by quin at 12:23 PM

Nice try, door-guarder.
posted by symbioid at 10:26 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

When I see further stories, I'll post them.

Doh! Ah well.

You be you, you!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:26 AM on May 3, 2011

It's nice that the US forces were worried about respecting Osama's religious traditions, but I'm pretty sure Islamic law also has something to say about not killing people. Also, what happened to the corpses of the other four people that they shot? Were they given Islamic burials by US forces, or were they just left there?
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:29 AM on May 3, 2011

Thanks for the disclaimer, AElfwine Evenstar. Unfortunately, since it came at the end of your instructions, I had already followed the earlier steps.

/dead tead writer pedantry
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Lovely, let's link to all the members of the super secret team!

Not linking them here doesn't keeps them secret.
posted by rtha at 10:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

You be you, you!

Just keep ~~fucking that chicken,~~ grinding that axe, Brandon.
posted by zarq at 10:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's fascinating to see how a major, divisive news event can showcase the errors in people's cognitive functions. It's like watching a dog or cat given drugs; they're normally so consistent in their behavior that watching them twitch and falter and spasm is all the more jarring.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 10:30 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

tead writer? Thank God I'm not an editor!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:34 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure Islamic law also has something to say about not killing people.

It's also in the Torah, but that never stopped the Israelis, either.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:35 AM on May 3, 2011

Well if you read the gospels that's exactly what it means.

Just to be clear the Christian concept of justice, and social justice in particular, doesn't end with Christ. Once you finish the gospels you will move on to the Pauline epistles and find where the concept of state justice enters the Christian lexicon. Try Romans 13. I've never been a big fan of Paul.

Thanks for the disclaimer, AElfwine Evenstar. Unfortunately, since it came at the end of your instructions, I had already followed the earlier steps.

Oh shit :(
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:35 AM on May 3, 2011

US forces were stationed just a few hundred yards from Osama Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in October 2008, according to reports within the Wikileaks embassy cables.

Outside the compound | another | another | another | compound gate | neighborhood restaurants | another
posted by nickyskye at 10:36 AM on May 3, 2011

Rumor has it three set of new photos to be released soon
posted by elpapacito at 10:37 AM on May 3, 2011

Wow. Wikileaks: the gift that keeps on giving.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:38 AM on May 3, 2011

OBL didn't deserve to be treated with more respect than he showed those victims.

Rare evidence of Christian behavior by a nation that purports to be so.
posted by scelerat at 10:39 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure Islamic law also has something to say about not killing people.

It's also in the Torah, but that never stopped the Israelis, either.

That because there's plenty in both telling them to kill.

That's the funny thing about hypocrisy.
posted by grubi at 10:39 AM on May 3, 2011

goatse links = an automatic day off - just because the thread's long doesn't mean it's not moderated.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:39 AM on May 3, 2011 [13 favorites]

Sarah Palin:

"Yesterday was a testament to the military’s dedication in relentlessly hunting down an enemy through many years of war. And we thank our president, we thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory."

posted by ericb at 10:41 AM on May 3, 2011

Try Romans 13. I've never been a big fan of Paul.

"But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer."

???
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:42 AM on May 3, 2011

And we thank our president, we thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory.

It's like they literally can't bring themselves to say you-know-who's name.
posted by EarBucket at 10:43 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

I've got to visit Hard Rock Cafe Abbottabad. I wonder what memorabilia they have.
posted by brundlefly at 10:43 AM on May 3, 2011

Is the good Cop as effective without the threat of the Bad Cop?

It's not a dichotomy. Torture is useless and counterproductive for a number of reasons. The biggest one being it forces a systemic lack of engagement. That is -
you purposefully isolate yourself and the individual to just the interrogation chamber. It's static. Purposefully so.
The "good cop" method (using the term as the shorthand it's been introduced as) is a dynamic system of engagement that leads to broadening avenues of questioning.
So it's not 'good cop vs. bad cop' or 'torture vs. questioning,' it's inward spiral vs. outward spiral. Systemically speaking.
That's without taking the noise generation and bias confirmation inherent in torture into account. It's counterproductive. Even without taking into consideration the inhumanity of it which also leads to counterproductive results.
I wish we would stop giving torture any consideration as an actual method. It's a LACK of method.

This may not have been an official joint operation, but it was almost certainly a collective effort.

There's not this monolith... which actually is one of the problems there. Unity in ultimate authority decision making. But there didn't need to be collaboration through any major channels.
This could have gone very wrong, but there are ways to mitigate that which doesn't require collaborative effort. And some that do. But I won't go there.
Politically, you have what happened to Carter with the Iran hostage rescue attempt. So it was risky on Obama's part to authorize the op.
That would be good leadership though. Picking an actual direction.
Far far better than the "Well ... uh ... we bargle bargle just go" crap from Bushco.

I don't agree with Rusdie beyond some particulars. Pakistan's biggest problem, the one most likely to result in some very poor outcomes (nuclear war with India, say) is the fractiousness. There seems to be this reliance on ambiguity of position as well from sympathetic elements. As though this is some kind of shield from practical reality. No one was shocked by the existence of the compound. What's shocking is that disparate elements within a government can have that much influence and practical power without it going unaddressed. (and yes, the 'shadow government' crap from Bushco send my nuts into my stomach and made my forefinger twitchy every time they said it)

The best thing to come out of this would be for Pakistan to straighten this out one way or the other.
Hopefully it's one way. The other, well, there are sanctions, all that. Bit early to declare it a terrorist state. If the death of one man saves millions from the fate of going down that road it's well worth it.

"Did OBL deserve death? No I don't think so as I don't believe in the death penalty... So I don't think I'm going out on too long of a limb to argue that Osama should not have been killed outright."

I don't believe in the death penalty either. But this completely ignores the practical and political realities and the nature of the operation.
One can debate whether there was the inclination to take OBL alive. But there are many factors that influence whether there is the capacity. Time constraints alone would dictate that if he resisted his life would be forfeit.

So let me be the one(maybe) dissenting voice and say that I am sad that Osama is gone

Thank you for your contribution.

Until we as a species learn to quit using violence and death as a means of resolving differences than I am afraid the prospects for our long term survival are grim indeed.

I'll just be here then with the folks writing blank checks for that long term survival with our lives, shall I? Devoting time, money and effort into doing something to stem the tide while you stand there and masturbate in anticipation to our potential failure?
But thank you for your contribution.

So good luck trying to "fix" anything. I'm going the Carlin route and just going to enjoy the show.

Thank you for your contribution.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:45 AM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

ericb: "And we thank our president, we thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory."

My god, just when I think she can't get any more cartoonish.
posted by brundlefly at 10:45 AM on May 3, 2011

... and give orders to millions using nothing other than a thumbdrive.

"The special operations forces grabbed personal computers, thumb drives and electronic equipment during the lightning raid that killed bin Laden, officials told POLITICO.

'They cleaned it out,' one official said. 'Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"*

posted by ericb at 10:47 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

AElfwine Evenstar, I think we're kinda getting at different points though. This thread has been hard to follow. My point is that this raid was a just action, your point is it's not good that we should personally be full of hate for anyone, yeah? Those don't contradict each other.
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:48 AM on May 3, 2011

???

As I said above I don't support the death penalty. Also before his conversion Paul was very good at meting out capital punishment to Christians. Furthermore his view on the law and justice evolves over time, which is evident if you read his epistles chronologically.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:48 AM on May 3, 2011

'They cleaned it out,' one official said. 'Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"

Half-Life Episode 3
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:49 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

nickyskye, thanks for helping to inject much-needed facts into this discussion with your informative link round-ups!
posted by Rhaomi at 10:49 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

The yellow-cake is a lie!
posted by Artw at 10:50 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Not linking them here doesn't keeps them secret.

That's true, but it does strike me as unseemly and not needed. I realize opinions may differ on this.

Just keep fucking that chicken, grinding that axe...

One day you'll learn to stop taking non-personal criticisms personally, I hope.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:50 AM on May 3, 2011

nickskye has some great links up and has been on this fact thing for a while. it helps with conflicting reports. Aelfy, I totally respect your view, more so, your tenacity. And I really resonate on your resigination comment about the absurd nature of the world. It is honest.
posted by clavdivs at 10:52 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?

"Y U NO WARN ME, COURIER?"
posted by cashman at 10:52 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?

OBLOLCats, of course.
posted by grubi at 10:56 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

The yellow-cake is a lie!

But the yellow cake with chocolate frosting is totally delicious!

nickskye has some great links up and has been on this fact thing for a while.

Yeah, but it's not really factual as everything is like a giant game of telephone, with stuff getting twisted around through human nature

Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?

Hot, but fundamentalist porn: "Oh man, look at the sliver of right ankle on that hot momma, hubba hubba!"

Pork BBQ recipes.

A diary "Dear diary, 976th day without internet. I so miss Metafilter, but one must suffer for the cause."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:56 AM on May 3, 2011

compound gate

Thanks for these photos, nickyskye. Akin to what Stewart was saying last night, these guys look like they're straight out of what we would conceive it to be like. I mean you can practically hear the dude on the left like "Wilder? Joan Wilder?"
posted by cashman at 10:56 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Hot, but fundamentalist porn: "Oh man, look at the sliver of right ankle on that hot momma, hubba hubba!"

I'm hoping there's like fifty gigabytes of that bubbled Mormon porn Reddit is so fond of.
posted by EarBucket at 10:57 AM on May 3, 2011

WH:carny is speaking. a sneeze.
posted by clavdivs at 10:58 AM on May 3, 2011

Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?

A folder marked 'Al Qaeda - TOP SECRET'.

Containing porn.
posted by unSane at 10:58 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's nice that the US forces were worried about respecting Osama's religious traditions, but I'm pretty sure Islamic law also has something to say about not killing people.

I wish someone had told bin Laden this.
posted by NorthernLite at 10:58 AM on May 3, 2011

The story of the Mexican “anchor baby” Navy SEAL that captured Osama bin Laden

"The Navy Seal story does appear to be a hoax. We regret the error."

Yeah ... I doubt we will ever know the identity of the SEALs involved in this operation.

The SEALs won't confirm they carried out the attack, but their current chief, Rear Adm. Edward Winters of the Naval Special Warfare Command in California, sent an email congratulating his forces and cautioning them to keep their mouths shut.

'Today we should all be proud. That handful of courageous men, of strong will and character, have changed the course of history,' he wrote, adding, 'Be extremely careful about operational security ... The fight is not over.'

... 'These guys were excited for the mission, they had been practicing for months. ... They will be honored and revered,' Greitens said of the group that carried out the mission. As for the man who fired the shot that killed him: 'He's a hero in my mind, and I think for all Americans.'"*

posted by ericb at 10:58 AM on May 3, 2011

ask the question....
posted by clavdivs at 10:59 AM on May 3, 2011

From the album "Wanted: Dead or Alive", here's The Joe Cuba Sextet, with...
posted by markkraft at 10:59 AM on May 3, 2011

"'Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"

Turns out he was a major Counterstrike griefer.

Also, into CFNM porn. Who knew?
posted by klangklangston at 11:00 AM on May 3, 2011

You be you, you!
...
One day you'll learn to stop taking non-personal criticisms personally, I hope.

How many more times would you have to have said "you" for it to be a personal criticism, then? Is five "you"s the official cutoff?
posted by dialetheia at 11:00 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

I'm hoping there's like fifty gigabytes of that bubbled Mormon porn Reddit is so fond of.

I bet it's Season's One and Two of Battlestar Galatica. He never found out how it ended. So lucky.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:00 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?

Mostly Buffy fanfic.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:01 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

The best sit -rep released
posted by clavdivs at 11:01 AM on May 3, 2011

"'Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"

IE6.

Yes. He was that evil.
posted by brundlefly at 11:01 AM on May 3, 2011 [15 favorites]

Probably the original PSD used to fake Obama's birth certificate.

We are through the looking glass, people!
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:03 AM on May 3, 2011

UbuRoivas wrote: It's also in the Torah, but that never stopped the Israelis, either.

My point is that the US administration is being hypocritical when it says that it buried him speedily out of respect for his religious traditions. Respect for his religious traditions would include not killing him and the people around him. Furthermore, it would presumably include burying all the corpses, not just the one that they were sent to collect.

They dumped his body over the side of a ship because it was inconvenient to do anything else. Dressing it up as an exercise in religious sensitivity is nauseating.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:03 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Respect for his religious traditions would include not killing him and the people around him.

This is an asinine point you're trying really hard to make.
posted by Aquaman at 11:05 AM on May 3, 2011

ANALYSIS: Bush’s Lackluster Hunt For Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 11:07 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Torture is just for making sadists feel good.

If I capture the operational head of Al Qaeda and the mastermind of 9/11, and he's not talking, I'm may decide for myself that I don't have the luxury of weeks or months of rapport building over cups of tea, talking about families, childhood memories, and common ground.

I know that there may be thousands of lives in the balance, and I also know that certain operations may have been accelerated because of his capture. The longer he holds out, the less useful any tactical information becomes.

I'm faced with a decision. Do I wait (and hope) for him to willingly disclose information, or do I try to "break" him by employing a technique that's been used on our own military and will not cause any lasting physical harm?

I know the information I receive will not be perfect. I may be told lies or half-truths. But luckily, we have information from other, willing informants that we can use as a benchmark. So it's something. And right now, time is the enemy.

I may choose to make the tragic decision that the risk of delay is too great, and I will do what is necessary to "break" the detainee.

You might make a different call. You may disagree with me. Though the heavens may fall, you may say, you won't cross that line. But do not deny that this is a dilemma, and the decision is an ethical one. It is not an excuse to get sadistic on someone.

People who take ethics seriously can decide that waterboarding or other forms of "enhanced" interrogation are necessary in certain extreme cases. An uncooperative operational leader of a ruthless global terrorist organization is, in my opinion, one of those extreme cases.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:07 AM on May 3, 2011

Joe, I think it's more appropriate and sensitive to let the locals bury the other dead people than to have them dragged off by Americans.
posted by thirteenkiller at 11:07 AM on May 3, 2011

Found on the Internet
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:09 AM on May 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

CSPAN - Jay Carney press conference ongoing. "It's fair to say that it is a gruesome photograph". And apparently they have confirmed that Bin Laden was unarmed, though many other people were armed. A "highly volatile firefight".
posted by cashman at 11:09 AM on May 3, 2011

Watch live: "White House spokesman Jay Carney says bin Laden was not armed when he was killed."
posted by ericb at 11:10 AM on May 3, 2011

An uncooperative operational leader of a ruthless global terrorist organization is, in my opinion, one of those extreme cases.

Welcome to Metafilter, Mr. Bauer.
posted by TedW at 11:10 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

I don't believe in the death penalty either. But this completely ignores the practical and political realities and the nature of the operation. One can debate whether there was the inclination to take OBL alive. But there are many factors that influence whether there is the capacity. Time constraints alone would dictate that if he resisted his life would be forfeit.

Given the fact that our military has a plethora of non lethal means to incapacitate subjects I don't think you've thought this through.

Thank you for your contribution.

You're welcome.

I'll just be here then with the folks writing blank checks for that long term survival with our lives, shall I? Devoting time, money and effort into doing something to stem the tide while you stand there and masturbate in anticipation to our potential failure?
But thank you for your contribution.

Again, thank you, and keep up the good work. I tend to be of the mind that the universe will unfold as it should so I don't really feel I'm masturbating...besides when I am in fact masturbating. Who said I want us to fail. My point was that I'm not gonna live a miserable woe is me existence given the current state of affairs. I will live my life to the fullest and do what I can where I can. Given my complete lack of influence and significant financial resources that kinda limits me as to what I can realistically do. If you are in a position to rock the change go ahead and be my guest I welcome it.

Thank you for your contribution.

Again, thank you and thanks for yours what ever they may be.

My only point is and has been that more death and violence has never in human history solved anything. It has led inextricably to the place at which we currently find ourselves. We need to change and I have hope that we can. Unfortunately I do not see that change occurring in the context of our current political systems. So, while we will most probably have some painful times ahead as a species I have hope that eventually cooler and more sane heads will prevail. Will I directly have any hand in this coming about? As much as I would like to I have to be realistic and realize my limitations. Realistically the only thing I can do of substance is to try and change enough people minds and get my ideas out there. Unfortunately, I am a fallible human being and as I have displayed right here on metafilter I am not always the most articulate or convincing of chaps.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:10 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, the WH say it was a breach floor to floor and not multi room breach.
They dumped his body over the side of a ship because it was inconvenient to do anything else. Dressing it up as an exercise in religious sensitivity is nauseating

Tell me who would take his body, His family? His country? His Mosque? he was shunned.
posted by clavdivs at 11:11 AM on May 3, 2011

more death and violence has never in human history solved anything.

Unfortunately for your point, this is patently and sadly false.
posted by Aquaman at 11:11 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Brandon Blatcher: One day you'll learn to stop taking non-personal criticisms personally, I hope.

dialetheia: How many more times would you have to have said "you" for it to be a personal criticism, then? Is five "you"s the official cutoff?

dialetheia said it best. Thank you, dialetheia.
posted by zarq at 11:12 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?

Mostly Buffy fanfic.

Twilight, actually.
posted by homunculus at 11:13 AM on May 3, 2011

BobbyVan, what proof do you have that torture even works?

I did an AskMe on this a while back while in the course of writing a paper tangentially about it. There is almost no evidence suggesting that torture itself works to extract useful information, unless such information is immediately verifiable. If you have evidence suggesting that it does work, then please provide it.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:13 AM on May 3, 2011

"Respect for his religious traditions would include not killing him and the people around him."

D'oh! It's a shame nobody told OBL about that before 9/11!

Your point seems to be that hunting down international criminals, dead or alive, is hypocritical if the criminal is a murderous believer in God/Allah.

But hey, separation of church and state... Just because the state tries to respect someone's religious beliefs, doesn't mean that they won't kill them under any circumstances.
posted by markkraft at 11:13 AM on May 3, 2011

Therefore, people using this as the basis of 'torture got us bin Laden' shouldn't do it.

If we torture our captives, it doesn't really matter how frequent or infrequent we do it, or whether one instance of many acts of torture led to OBL or not. The line was crossed.

So its good we tortured? Or because we tortured, we have to let Osama bin Laden walk? Just guessing here. Because my point is that assholes who claim torture is right based on the facts of the case cannot prove it.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:14 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Aelfy, I totally respect your view, more so, your tenacity. And I really resonate on your resigination comment about the absurd nature of the world. It is honest.

Thanks clav. Maybe one day we can do a meetup and discuss shit face to face. Maybe over an evening of drink and a Kabuki show :)

People who take ethics seriously can decide that waterboarding or other forms of "enhanced" interrogation are necessary in certain extreme cases. An uncooperative operational leader of a ruthless global terrorist organization is, in my opinion, one of those extreme cases.

Which almost never happens except in Tom Clancey novels, 24, and the movies.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:15 AM on May 3, 2011

Joe in Australia writes "My point is that the US administration is being hypocritical when it says that it buried him speedily out of respect for his religious traditions. Respect for his religious traditions would include not killing him and the people around him. Furthermore, it would presumably include burying all the corpses, not just the one that they were sent to collect. "

This is a false dilemma. It's not a matter of "does the target's religion permit us to kill him?" It's we're going to kill him and will have to arrange for burial; "given that constraint what burial technique should we use considering the religious beliefs of the target". I'm pretty the same consideration is given to people executed by the state in the US.

AElfwine Evenstar writes "My only point is and has been that more death and violence has never in human history solved anything."

Sadly untrue.
posted by Mitheral at 11:16 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Because my point is that assholes who claim torture is right based on the facts of the case cannot prove it.

what can be proved is the beast who tortures cares not for what is right but results.
You sir, need to read your Stalin.
posted by clavdivs at 11:17 AM on May 3, 2011

How many more times would you have to have said "you" for it to be a personal criticism, then? Is five "you"s the official cutoff?

7 or he could ignore the ribbing, rather than seeing it as axe grinding. I'm not sure what he means by chicken fucking, assumed it was personal hobby.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:18 AM on May 3, 2011

Was fresh celery involved?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:19 AM on May 3, 2011

Sadly untrue.

Oh I'm sure certain "situations" have been "resolved", but in the end violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

Maybe you could give some examples?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:20 AM on May 3, 2011

violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

If it's not connected causally, then how did the violence beget more violence?
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:21 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Amateur bin Laden hunter credits self for "flushing out" bin Laden.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:22 AM on May 3, 2011

in the end violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

Magical thinking.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:23 AM on May 3, 2011

7 or he could ignore the ribbing, rather than seeing it as axe grinding. I'm not sure what he means by chicken fucking, assumed it was personal hobby.

Julia Childs said the same thing to me about creme boulle substitues.

flash: woman in bin laden room shot in leg!
posted by clavdivs at 11:23 AM on May 3, 2011

Oh I'm sure certain "situations" have been "resolved", but in the end violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

Nice goalpost moving there.
posted by Aquaman at 11:23 AM on May 3, 2011

Oh I'm sure certain "situations" have been "resolved", but in the end violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

if you can't prove causally, then you're asking us to take what you say on faith alone
posted by pyramid termite at 11:23 AM on May 3, 2011

My only point is and has been that more death and violence has never in human history solved anything."

I'm going to call that an ignorant statement. The problem is that death and violence solve things way too easily and are thus used a lot.

Oh I'm sure certain "situations" have been "resolved", but in the end violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

That's an extremely vague and loose statement, and kinda meaningless I think. If person A kills person B for money to buy food, a problem is indeed solved.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:24 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

then how did the violence beget more violence?

Quantum entanglement. It really boils down to the quantum states of violence particles. There's a lot of math.
posted by aramaic at 11:24 AM on May 3, 2011 [11 favorites]

Given the fact that our military has a plethora of non lethal means to incapacitate subjects I don't think you've thought this through.

No it doesn't. There are weapons like tasers, beanbag guns, pellet guns firing OC, net launchers and all sorts of other things but nobody is stupid enough to turn up to a probable gunfight with one. If you know they have an AK47 would you knowingly take a weapon that cannot stop an enemy fighter so they can shoot at you all day from cover and you fire fucking rubber balls at them?

It's clear that you don't know about this sort of thing but seriously you cannot expect a snatch team to turn up to a gun fight with non-lethal weapons only. That would be suicide. Putting aside whatever moral quibbles you have with the action against OBL this must surely be obvious to you?
posted by longbaugh at 11:25 AM on May 3, 2011

I'm going to call that an ignorant statement. The problem is that death and violence solve things way too easily and are thus used a lot.

coughhatfieldMccoycough
posted by clavdivs at 11:25 AM on May 3, 2011

People who take ethics seriously

...Should understand that there's no scientific or otherwise reliable data to show that torture works before they go bloviating on about ticking bomb scenarios when they don't know anything about interrogation.

• From the perspectives of both research and practice, educing
information is most productively viewed as a dynamic and reciprocal
process rather than as a discrete event, task, or series of face-to-face
encounters.
• U.S. personnel have used a limited number of interrogation
techniques over the past half-century, but virtually none of them — or
their underlying assumptions — are based on scientifi c research or have
even been subjected to scientifi c or systematic inquiry or evaluation.
• The potential mechanisms and effects of using coercive
techniques or torture for gaining accurate, useful information from
an uncooperative source are much more complex than is commonly
assumed. There is little or no research to indicate whether such techniques
succeed in the manner and contexts in which they are applied. Anecdotal
accounts and opinions based on personal experiences are mixed, but the
preponderance of reports seems to weigh against their effectiveness.
• The accuracy of educed information can be compromised by
the manner in which it is obtained. The effects of many common stress
and duress techniques are known to impair various aspects of a person’s
cognitive functioning, including those functions necessary to retrieve
and produce accurate, useful information.
• Psychological theory and some (indirectly) related research
suggest that coercion or pressure can actually increase a source’s
resistance and determination not to comply. Although pain is commonly
assumed to facilitate compliance, there is no available scientifi c or
systematic research to suggest that coercion can, will, or has provided
accurate useful information from otherwise uncooperative sources.

From Educing Information - Interrogation: Science and Art - Foundations for the Future (.pdf), produced by the National Defense Intelligence College
posted by rtha at 11:26 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

It really boils down to the quantum states of violence particles. There's a lot of math.

Midi-gorians?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:27 AM on May 3, 2011

BobbyVan, what proof do you have that torture even works?

It seemed to have worked in KSM's case. See this Washington Post report.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:27 AM on May 3, 2011

My only point is and has been that more death and violence has never in human history solved anything.

Obviously the Soviets should have used non-violence against the Wehrmacht.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:27 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

perhaps the soviets should not have dealt with a beast first.
posted by clavdivs at 11:30 AM on May 3, 2011

The Soviets should have moved somewhere warm and married a nice girl. But do they ever listen to their mother?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:32 AM on May 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

I took my time to think about this and I'm not sure that killing him was really that great of a thing. Politically, any President would have to do it. The truth is that I had pretty much completely forgotten about Osama bin Laden, I think prior to him being killed I maybe last thought about him maybe during the election a couple of years ago, and even that was because other people kept bringing it up. I was kind of enjoying it, actually. I'm not saying that I'm sorry he's dead, because really I'm not, but I think that maybe forgetting about him was better.

It makes me wonder if taking glee in his death is based deep in a person's ideas of crime and punishment. As a country, America has pretty much given up on the idea of rehabilitation and gone with a vengeance based approach to justice. Again to be clear, I'm not saying that Osama Bin Laden could be rehabilitated in any way, it's just about the attitude of people towards retribution.

Also, I 'm remembering all that stuff people have said about how "if we change our ideas and way of life then the terrorists win" and I can't help thinking that the terrorists won.
posted by jefeweiss at 11:34 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

if you can't prove causally, then you're asking us to take what you say on faith alone

Well causality does break down at the quantum level. Not my problem that some are unaware of this feature in nature.

I'm going to call that an ignorant statement. The problem is that death and violence solve things way too easily and are thus used a lot.

You can call it whatever you want. Short term benefits do not lead to long term solutions as has been evidenced by every major civilization that has ever existed. Our own being a perfect example.

That's an extremely vague and loose statement, and kinda meaningless I think. If person A kills person B for money to buy food, a problem is indeed solved.

Yes the hunger "situation" is solved, but when person B's relative comes along for revenge you can surely see where this will lead.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:34 AM on May 3, 2011

coughhatfieldMccoycough

coughALotOfOtherSituationsWhereViolenceActuallyDidSolveThingscough.
posted by Aquaman at 11:35 AM on May 3, 2011

It's nice that the US forces were worried about respecting Osama's religious traditions

Does anyone seriously believe that some kind of respect for OBL's religious traditions and/or basic dignity as a human being, have anything to do with why they did what they did with his corpse??

It's a total PR move. Some people may be pretty angry about his death, and the same people already view the US Government as very anti-Islam (not that OBL was any kind of, or a very good Muslim). Burying him according to Islamic tradition (within reason) is about quelling incensed people, preventing violence that may be preventable, and broadcasting that the US does in fact respect Islamic values -- not about personally respecting OBL's values or some shit. Burying him with basic dignity helps the US. It's a very smart, very strategic move.
posted by raztaj at 11:35 AM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

when person B's relative comes along for revenge you can surely see where this will lead

This is why I always kill all the relatives, too. There's a lot of math.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:37 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It seemed to have worked in KSM's case. See this Washington Post report.

If you try to defend democracy by using undemocratic methods, you fail to defend democracy.

One of the reasons America was such a victory was that it rejected the methods of the King and his government who regularly denied people due process because that made it easier to govern, and easier to hold on to power. All men are created equal. Everyone gets the right to representation and a fair trial. If you're not going to defend these values, let's just fucking drop the rhetoric. Call it the American Empire, redefine person as "American Not Suspected of Terrorism" and continue the killing. But you can't have both, alright?
posted by notion at 11:37 AM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

7 or he could ignore the ribbing, rather than seeing it as axe grinding.

It's not ribbing. It is axe-grinding. Just as it was a personal attack, even though you denied it afterwards.

I'm done bantering with you here. You're derailing an interesting discussion.
posted by zarq at 11:37 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't the person responsible for killing Bin Laden be Bin Laden.

Clearly the US and Interpol had designated him as a wanted terrorist responsible for many deaths.

He could have fought the charges from non-extradition country, sent evidence to the Hague... he had a million options that didn't involve the US military having break into a compound and engaging in a firefight just to get the chance to take him alive.
posted by rosswald at 11:38 AM on May 3, 2011

Well causality does break down at the quantum level.

or at the language level, or the thinking level ...
posted by pyramid termite at 11:39 AM on May 3, 2011

Obviously the Soviets should have used non-violence against the Wehrmacht.

No, but WWII led to the Cold War which has led us to where we currently find ourselves. Are you beginning to see a pattern? Any solution has to be species wide which is why I think that our current political systems are unlikely to lead to any long term solutions. Certainly a non violent approach would be ideal but is ultimately suicidal given the current geopolitical structure.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:40 AM on May 3, 2011

this how the templars were formed.
posted by clavdivs at 11:41 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good God, AElfwine, the only way to win your argument is to show that the entire world is now completely peaceful with no violence ever ocurring ever again. Doesn't that seem a little unfairly tilted to you?
posted by Aquaman at 11:42 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

BobbyVan: “It seemed to have worked in KSM's case. See this Washington Post report.”

Not only is it not clear that it "worked" in the case of Khalid Sheik Mohammad – he himself, for instance, claims that it didn't work, and that the waterboarding prompted all kinds of ridiculous lies from him – but it gives the lie to your rationalization up above:

“If I capture the operational head of Al Qaeda and the mastermind of 9/11, and he's not talking, I'm may decide for myself that I don't have the luxury of weeks or months of rapport building over cups of tea, talking about families, childhood memories, and common ground.”

The point is that Khalid Sheik Mohammad only became tractable and cooperative several months after he was waterboarded, and it took at least six months to actually get any information out of him. And what's more, most of that time involved actual rapport-building exercises, treating him with dignity and working with him, giving him a chance to tell his story.

You are left trying to prove that the waterboarding is an essential part of that rapport-building; some of us aren't so sure. Either way, it took a long time to turn him into an asset. So the whole "I'm Jack Bauer, and I must break this terrorist now in order to glean important life-saving information from him!" nonsense doesn't fly. Time is not a factor here. In deciding to torture, one must accept that one will not get any good information within the first two months.
posted by koeselitz at 11:43 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

With regards the sea burial nobody would have cared if they'd have just shown a photo beforehand.

I'm also not sure that the helicopter stalled - I've read reports that it was shot at with an RPG which seems more likely.
posted by zeoslap at 11:43 AM on May 3, 2011

AElfwine Evenstar: “Any solution has to be species wide...”

Why?
posted by koeselitz at 11:44 AM on May 3, 2011

"Are you beginning to see a pattern?"

Definitely getting a Manhunter/Red Dragon vibe from this
posted by rosswald at 11:44 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I also want to thank bardophile for her perspective and information, it's been excellent signal among the increasing noise of this thread. Thanks.
posted by Errant at 11:45 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

a non violent approach would be ideal but is ultimately suicidal given the current geopolitical structure

Hence violence, while never solving anything, is also the only non-suicidal choice? Hmm. That's definitely a cognitive dissonance, but all joking aside, I would have to say that I agree with that, if it is, indeed, your position. Violence is a poor choice, and often leads to a continuing cycle of violence. It's also sometimes pretty much the only sane choice. A bitter aspect to life as we know it, but maybe unavoidable barring evolutionary-level change.

I should probably include a fart joke at this point so people know it's really me.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:46 AM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's post hoc ergo propter hoc to say that the torture was what made him cooperative. When tortured, he gave intentionally false information in order to get them to stop and to waste their time.

That article also contains a flagrant contradiction. They theorize that torture allows cooperating prisoners to claim that they confessed only under tortured, thereby allowing them to save face. But that narrative is flatly contradicted by KSM's own statements, where he denigrates the torture and talks about how it didn't work.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:47 AM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

No, but WWII led to the Cold War which has led us to where we currently find ourselves. Are you beginning to see a pattern?

No, No I'm not. Except in so far as we see the arrow of time moving in one direction. Your position is based entirely on faith.
posted by Justinian at 11:48 AM on May 3, 2011

The assumption behind the "violence begets more violence" mentality is that violence is not an attribute inherent to humanity itself. You might as well argue that food leads to hunger - after all, you're hungry the next day - but maybe if you stopped eating forever, you would eventually no longer be hungry.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:51 AM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

It's kind of a Herringbone pattern. A little busy, if you ask me. But it works in earth tones.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:52 AM on May 3, 2011

It seemed to have worked in KSM's case. See this Washington Post report.
posted by BobbyVan

The Washington Post left out the fact that after waterboarding KSM, they went back to rapport-based interrogation.

KSM was waterboarded 183 times in the first MONTHS of his capture; sort of puts lie to the "time is the enemy so we need to torture him to get intel NOW" school of excuse making, doesn't it.
posted by faineant at 11:53 AM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

No, but WWII led to the Cold War which has led us to where we currently find ourselves. Are you beginning to see a pattern?

What does WWII have to do with comfy middle class and non violent (except for video games) life?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:53 AM on May 3, 2011

...maybe if you stopped eating forever, you would eventually no longer be hungry.

Your ideas are intriguing to me....
posted by Floydd at 11:54 AM on May 3, 2011

perhaps the soviets should not have dealt with a beast first

Except the plan for Lebensraum was hatched in 1919 and written about in the Zweites Buch in 1928. Dealing with the Austrian Corporal didn't provoke anything.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:56 AM on May 3, 2011

...maybe if you stopped eating forever, you would eventually no longer be hungry.

Isn't that the Osama diet?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:58 AM on May 3, 2011

The Washington Post left out the fact that after waterboarding KSM, they went back to rapport-based interrogation.

It's the pickle jar technique again. Works every time.
posted by unSane at 12:00 PM on May 3, 2011

or at the language level, or the thinking level ...

Good one you got me there.

Good God, AElfwine, the only way to win your argument is to show that the entire world is now completely peaceful with no violence ever ocurring ever again. Doesn't that seem a little unfairly tilted to you?

This isn't about winning an argument. It's entirely logical to assume that at some point in the future human society can evolve to this point. Violence like the breakdown of causality is a feature of nature. We were born of violence in the cores of exploding stars, but there is no logical reason to assume we cannot evolve beyond our formative characteristics. In fact it is my opinion that we must do so if we are to survive as a species. For example, consciousness is not a formative characteristic of nature(that we are aware of anyways), but it emerged naturally from a complex system of biological evolution.

On preview, yes Florence that's what I mean.

No, No I'm not. Except in so far as we see the arrow of time moving in one direction. Your position is based entirely on faith.

Ummmm things are causally connected specifically because of the apparent arrow of time. WWII leads so mass murders on both sides culminating in the bombing of Hiroshima. This leads directly to the cold war and the attending arms race. The blowback from our proxy wars during the cold war led directly to our current "war on terror". I don't think it takes faith to see the causal connection here.

violence is not an attribute inherent to humanity itself

But as I said above it is an attribute inherent to nature.

Gotta go be back later.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:03 PM on May 3, 2011

Recent Activity bookmark.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:04 PM on May 3, 2011

Violence may well begat violence but this thread has begat me googling the definition of CFNM.

So. Thanks for that klang.
posted by Jofus at 12:04 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you try to defend democracy by using undemocratic methods, you fail to defend democracy.

Cannot be favorited and quoted enough. If you think you're fundamentally better than your enemy, you fucking act like it.
posted by grubi at 12:05 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ahem.

Also.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:06 PM on May 3, 2011

But luckily, we have information from other, willing informants that we can use as a benchmark. So it's something. And right now, time is the enemy.

Already you are on shaky ground. If the other informants have enough good stuff, why do you need to torture this guy? If they aren't giving you the good stuff, how do you know the torture subject won't give you the truth about minor details (which he knows you know anyway) and lie about the good stuff (which he knows you can't confirm)?

If it's a ticking bomb scenario, do you trust the torture subject not to feed you deliberate disinformation designed to blow you up?

I may choose to make the tragic decision that the risk of delay is too great, and I will do what is necessary to "break" the detainee.

You know, I'm almost prepared to be OK with this, provided you accept your action as evil and unlawful and turn yourself in to the proper authorities afterwards. To me, not accepting torture as justifiable is a necessary measure to prevent systematic abuse - after all, if you think the situation is so grave as to justify torturing another human being, you will surely be willing to accept some legal liability for yourself.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:06 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Do I wait (and hope) for him to willingly disclose information, or do I try to "break" him by employing a technique
that's been used on our own military and will not cause any lasting physical harm?"

That's a false dilemma. One that's been soundly defeated in prior posts here and has been consistently disproven by professional interrogators.

"People who take ethics seriously can decide that waterboarding or other forms of "enhanced" interrogation are necessary in certain extreme cases.
An uncooperative operational leader of a ruthless global terrorist organization is, in my opinion, one of those extreme cases."

Except he's not an isolated specimen. One of the most productive methods of getting intelligence is through pattern analysis. The best method in getting
information on patterns is to, y'know, get accurate information. I've mentioned Ravens before so I don't mind getting into it a bit. Guess how OBL was run down? Yeah, pattern analysis which models behavior onto real time observations. If you capture someone, you've bound one point in a net. It's important to get information out of him, yes. But the best method - again, torture not being a method at all - is to discuss what you've mischaracterized as
"rapport building over cups of tea, talking about families, childhood memories, and common ground."
Allowing someone a criminal defense - in and of itself by the manner in which
it is conducted - reveals a plethora of information. If he opens his mouth on any subject, you can investigate it and develop a profile which fits into a pattern by which
you can discern other points in the net.
If you knew what you were talking about this would be academic and my shoddy interpretation would be dismissed as facile since I'm only casually familiar with it.
("Smed, you've got it all wrong, the NSA and NGIA use criminal resconstruction forensics in concert with forward deployed fusion cells to ... " yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just ops. I eat hearty, sleep and lift weights. Notice the comic books?)
But I have picked up a few things. And I take ethics verys seriously and I'm an educated man, but I can't fathom why any thinking individual can't see the obvious practical problems and inconsistencies in
employing torture. It's not getting tough, it's getting stupid. It's allowing your adrenals and gonads to think for you (I'm intimately familiar with this topic unfortunately).
At the very best it's a waste of time.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:06 PM on May 3, 2011 [12 favorites]

It's entirely logical to assume that at some point in the future human society can evolve to this point.

How is that logical, especially with the vague qualifiers in there (some, can)? Are you aware of some other life form that has decided or evolved to become non-violent?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:09 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Smedleyman, you got some weird like breaks there...

Everything okay?
posted by grubi at 12:11 PM on May 3, 2011

If you try to defend democracy by using undemocratic methods, you fail to defend democracy.

While I don't disagree with this sentiment, at the same time, it buys into the erroneous pro-torture framing of the question. Torture isn't this effective thing that would be naughty to touch - it is something done that does not make things better. Remember, the burden on pro-torture people is to show that torture is effective in the first place. It's immoral in any event aside from that, but don't let pro-torture people come up with counterfactuals like, "well, what if you captured a really bad dude who knows where the Godzilla eggs are, but he won't tell you - do you torture him to get the info out, or do stand there and do nothing?" It's a false dilemma in any event, because torture is not more effective than other, more effective means to extract information.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:13 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

OK, I think we found out how the whole thing got confused. Cue Jay Carney:

On orders of the president, a small U.S. team assaulted a secure compound in an affluent suburb of Islamabad to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. The raid was conducted with U.S. military personnel assaulting on two helicopters. The team methodically cleared the compound, moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes. They were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation and Osama bin Laden was killed by the assaulting force.

In addition to the Bin Laden family, two other families resided in the compound: one family on the first floor of the Bin Laden building and one family in a second building. One team began the operation on the first floor of the Bin Laden house and worked their way to the third floor. The second team cleared the separate building.

On the first floor of Bin Laden's building, two Al Qaeda couriers were killed, along with a woman who was killed in crossfire. Bin Laden and his family were found on the second and third floors of the building. There was concern that Bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he did resist. In the room with Bin Laden, a woman, Bin Laden's wife, rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.

Following the firefight, the noncombatants were moved to a safe location as the damaged helicopter was detonated. The team departed the scene via helicopter to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson in the north Arabian Sea. Aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, the burial of Bin Laden was done in accordance with Islamic precepts and practices. The deceased's body was washed and then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:14 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's entirely logical to assume that at some point in the future human society can evolve to this point.

This is becoming a derail, but count me in as someone who can't see how it's obviously and entirely logical to make this assumption.
posted by rtha at 12:15 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm also not seeing the connection between the alleged "violence" of the exploding stars whence we came and, say, the volitional human-on-human violence of WWII. Stars don't have consciousness. They don't feel any particular way about exploding. They don't choose to explode (or do anything else).
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:19 PM on May 3, 2011

I think it's a possibility humanity could one day develop a society without war. Interpersonal violence is probably inevitable. But this is probably far off stuff that would require Star Trek optimism. Like, post-scarcity society stuff humanity's cultures either being isolated or ideologically compatible enough people don't care for war.

But acting like it could happen within a few decades is ridiculous. I don't care how techno- or diplomacy- optimistic you are. Even if the singularity does come true like in the novels, people will still fight. And I seriously doubt the way we handled Osama Bin Laden has much of an effect on our trajectory towards that future.

And I don't think supernovas have to be considered violent. That's extreme anthropomorphizing. We can also view it as a birthing process (stars putting off new elements of matter to make a new generation of planets and stars), or as a celebration (a star celebrates its life with the celestial equivalent of fireworks), or even just as matter and energy equalizing towards the heat-death of the universe.
posted by mccarty.tim at 12:26 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ironmouth, you earlier said: "I think everyone would have liked to have him tried, including Obama. But the guy shot back. Flat out. He personally discharged his weapon at the team."

Now that you know that bin Laden was not armed does it change your position in any way?
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:26 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

notion: “If you try to defend democracy by using undemocratic methods, you fail to defend democracy.”

This seems noble, but isn't it arguing Aelfwine's point? I mean, uh, isn't war a bit undemocratic?
posted by koeselitz at 12:28 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The team departed the scene via helicopter to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson in the north Arabian Sea. Aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, the burial of Bin Laden was done in accordance with Islamic precepts and practices. The deceased's body was washed and then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea.

Thanks Ironmouth. So that goes against some earlier report (from some outside source I believe) that OBL had been encased in cement. So they buried him in the North Arabian Sea?

I can't tell if they are saying they just led the body slide into the sea o if it was still in the weighted bag. I can't imagine if it is in the weighted bag, that it won't eventually be found, even if it is decades from now.
posted by cashman at 12:28 PM on May 3, 2011

I can't imagine if it is in the weighted bag, that it won't eventually be found, even if it is decades from now.

What do you think will be left to find after a few decades submerged in the ocean?
posted by Justinian at 12:30 PM on May 3, 2011

WWII leads so mass murders on both sides culminating in the bombing of Hiroshima. This leads directly to the cold war and the attending arms race. The blowback from our proxy wars during the cold war led directly to our current "war on terror".

Let's just blame Gavrilo Princip for everything.
posted by ob at 12:31 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

So its good we tortured? Or because we tortured, we have to let Osama bin Laden walk?

I have no idea how you could have possibly derived this from what I said, but I still hope to one day see an answer to this from you, Ironmouth.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:32 PM on May 3, 2011

Now that you know that bin Laden was not armed does it change your position in any way?

lawyers don't have positions, they have angles.
posted by mokuba at 12:37 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

After the words were complete, the body was placed on prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea.

What happened to the flat board?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It was eased into the sea using a flatter board.
posted by Aquaman at 12:38 PM on May 3, 2011 [23 favorites]

What happened to the flat board?

If it explains anything, I initially misread that as flat bread.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:38 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thoughts:

OBL Dead--->Hell's yeah!

Obama ----> Hell's yeah! A better CinC than Bush ever was and I would bet the brass agrees. Stick that in your Corpro-fascist pipes and smoke it Wingers and Baggers and Fox news and Dittohead.

This thread ----> Beastly

People celebrating in the streets---> Beastly. Dumb. Embarrassing.

Pakistan ----> I knew those bastards were playing this country. Especially Bush. Musharraff played Bush like a cheap banjo.

Trump ----> Who??

Bush ---> Dude had his chance. 8 years worth and he failed to get OBL. This is Obama's prize for the very real reason that had this mission gone wrong in any way, the mountain of political hurt and blame would've all come to rest on his shoulders, not Dubya. Ergo, the triumph is all his. Don't let the Wingers try and play or get any daylight on this, they're out of their minds with envy and confounded at how badly they've lost reins of the narrative here for all the unAmerican and unpatriotic crap they've hurled and dog whistled in the name of Obama. At this point they deserve to have that dog whistle shoved deeply down their throat. And don't let them, as Cheney promptly did, try and say it was Waterboarding that led to this. Bullshit. 8 years of waterboarding got Bush/Cheney nada in terms of actionable intel on OBL. Perhaps if they hadn't focussed so much on Iraq, Dubya woulda had this glory moment, but he didn't and fuck that whole incompetent criminal administration. They may never face jail time, but fucking hell, at least they didn't get to also claim the golden prize, proving once again: Crime doesn't pay, GOP chumps.

(Actually, I know it does all the time for them, but I just like to throw moral platitudes at hypocrites. I'm weird like that.)
posted by Skygazer at 12:39 PM on May 3, 2011 [16 favorites]

Bin Laden Compound Could Yield Big Intelligence Harvest -- "U.S. working 'with great dispatch' on thousands of documents, officials say."

Interesting tidbit:

"The BBC, quoting a Pakistani intelligence official, reported Tuesday that U.S. commandos also may have taken one of bin Laden's sons with them. U.S. officials have not confirmed that report."

posted by ericb at 12:48 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Panetta: Pakistan Would Have Short-Circuited the Mission to Take Out Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 12:50 PM on May 3, 2011

Right-Wing Media Embrace Latest Anti-Obama Conspiracy Theory: Bin Laden Might Not Be Dead.
posted by ericb at 12:52 PM on May 3, 2011

Except the plan for Lebensraum was hatched in 1919 and written about in the Zweites Buch in 1928. Dealing with the Austrian Corporal didn't provoke anything.

That makes...little sense in the relevance to your intial comment historically. You have just plucked a convienent antecedant for the justification of agression by Germany. I will posit that existed before 1919:

In addition, Otto von Bismarck goaded the French into declaring war by altering a telegram sent by William I. Releasing the Ems Telegram to the public, Bismarck made it sound as if the king had treated the French envoy in a demeaning fashion. Six days later, France declared war on Prussia.

Dealing with Hitler had everything to do with it. Why did stalin train his forces, why did he carve up poland, why the business connections. Dealing with this mad man was precisely the thing that led to provocation. And it was the deal (poland) that let germany have extra tactical Lebenstrum when they attacked in 39'.
posted by clavdivs at 12:53 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Very helpful -- Bin Laden Reading Guide: How to Cut Through the Coverage.
posted by ericb at 12:55 PM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

This seems noble, but isn't it arguing Aelfwine's point? I mean, uh, isn't war a bit undemocratic?

Not intrinsically. If an armed force is trying to destroy your democracy, there are legitimate avenues of response. But the point is that when bin Laden or one of his associates has a POW or a suspect, they just kill them. If we do the same thing, we cannot claim to be on the right side. We're just on the other side. All of the pretty words and redifinitions of torture, war, combat, and prisoner of war are demeaning and laughably transparent.

Take this whole incident. If it turns out to be true that he was given a chance to surrender and refused, then his death during an attempt to make him stand trial for crimes is democratic. If it turns out that he was killed unnecessarily, then it was a failure.

All of this assumes that the government of Pakistan willingly participated in the operation. You can request a foreign government to join you in apprehending a suspect, but if you believe in democracy, you cannot force them to. That's why we wouldn't tolerate Cuba raiding and assassinating Luis Posada on American soil. The fact that we regularly do the opposite is evidence of our true feelings about democracy: it's good for us, but no one else can be trusted with free will, since it may conflict with our "international interests" or simple bloodlust.
posted by notion at 12:59 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bin Laden Compound Could Yield Big Intelligence Harvest.

I think this is whats containing the retributive revenge attacks. If I were in a cell or one of the forward operators, I would be running like hell, without showing that I was "running like hell" which I'm sure the Intel departments and countries around the world are looking out for, because that's the way Obama works. Slow, methodical, ear to the ground, with redundancies on redundancies and super planning for all parts of an operation, and that includes the harvest of leads that will come from the Intel they found as well as whatever this flushes out in terms of cells exposing themselves.. This is a coup all around, really and should pay dividends for some time to come. Unfortunately if there were any operations in the final stages, those might go.

What would be sweet is if this flushed out Zawahiri and more of the heads of this supposed mythic hydra head. Screw that noise. AQ is not and never was a supernatural entity and the death of OBL proves that.

Also, listen to the wording being used by the WH and it's people: This is a war against AQ not some abstract concept called "terrorism." Hillary Clinton used the word "syndicate" to describe the organization, which reduces them to simply a criminal organization.

Very very nice work going on here. It's got Obama's thoroughness and genius all over it. Like a well crafted beautiful piece of furniture this whole thing. Quite pleasing the thought behind it. And a relief to know there's someone at the helm of this who is smarter than OBL. Which with Dubya and Cheney it was always a "known known," that they were at classed but it had to be tolerated supposedly...

Same with the morons jockeying for position in the Republican primaries. Not one of those fools, hypocrites, egomaniacs and jokers could put together and implement something this well designed and I am sure of that.

This world is simply too complex to ever vote for the GOP ever again. They play for the small minds, which are easily impressed and manipulated, when what is necessary is someone who can play with the big minds, and does anyone doubt that China or Germany or France or the UK, for even a second underestimates the intelligence of Obama. I truly doubt it.
posted by Skygazer at 1:07 PM on May 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

Right-Wing Media Embrace Latest Anti-Obama Conspiracy Theory: Bin Laden Might Not Be Dead.

Duh. Now I get it. They're (Conservatives) going to make shit up anyway. They're going to start rumors, disbelieve the sun exists if you say it does, and challenge that the wind blows through the trees if you announce a kite-flying program.

So let it happen. Just like with the birth certificate. Let it build, and then when they get worked up into a frenzy, release evidence that makes them look stupid and conspiratorial. This also wastes their time on goose chases and they ultimately end up nowhere.

Do this again and again, and pretty soon when they trot out the latest conspiracy theory, people are going to just point and laugh.
posted by cashman at 1:10 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

From Spiegel Online: Justice, American Style - Was Bin Laden's Killing Legal?
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:11 PM on May 3, 2011

If you really think that violence begets violence -- that some of those who followed OBL will feel compelled to acts of revenge -- then don't you have to also reasonably believe that fear begets fear?

Isn't this also likely to trigger a "chilling effect", in that it will make it abundantly clear that no terrorist is safe, even when presumably under the protection of someone in Pakistan's military hierarchy? If you were a terrorist, would you feel safer today in Pakistan... or would you be worried that the US is going to insist that Pakistan's hierarchy be scoured, to track down those who are helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban? The people of Abbottabad were shocked that OBL was in their midst, and frankly, a *lot* of them -- and most Pakistanis -- do not like al Qaeda, simply do not want that kind of heat next door, and are skeptical about their own government's actions in this case. They want their sovereignty, sure... and aren't fond of American militarism. But if their government allows the baddest terrorist leader in the world to hide right next to a major military establishment, well... it explains why there were only a few hundred people at a pro-OBL protest the other day.

The truth is, the people of Pakistan do not want this kind of heat... and neither do the terrorists. In truth, this was a really, really painful blow to violent extremists in Pakistan, because many with money and power in Pakistan are going to want a clean house, while many others in power will feel pressured to do so. Pakistan's power brokers have experienced a mild economic improvement in recent years, due to being an "ally" of the West, and that's something they don't want to lose.

Pakistan's elite have taken the money in the past, and they're damn near addicted to it. Well, now comes the accountability. In effect, this means that the only people the radicals and terrorists can trust anymore is themselves... and last I heard, religious extremists don't tend to earn a lot of money themselves. They exist only in an environment where they can be supported by institutionalized patronage... and I don't think that environment will be nearly as sustainable after all the chips fall from this. To be honest, it was slowly fading out, anyway.

So, yes, there will likely be violent reprisals. But there will also be more fear, more incentive to negotiate, and probably a good deal less money flowing into the hands of Pakistan's religious extremists. And other would-be terrorists will have to face the fact that OBL -- with his state patronage and his armed guards to hide behind -- had it good and *still* died, afraid and hunted... and that they simply can't expect to have the same opportunities themselves.
posted by markkraft at 1:12 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I almost wish Obama would wait a month or two for the deather conspiracy to go mainstream, and then release the photos. Although the GOP is probably getting accustomed to his "Let them get in a frenzy, then embarrass them" strategy. He did it on healthcare, he did it on the birth certificate, and you know what they say.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:14 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"If I were in a cell or one of the forward operators, I would be running like hell..."

In truth, probably at least a dozen other terrorists are going down... and more importantly, probably several people within the Pakistani military and the ISI, who face the significant risk of being treated like the terrorists they have supported.
posted by markkraft at 1:15 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

White House Corrects Bin Laden Narrative, apparently he was not armed?
posted by kuatto at 1:16 PM on May 3, 2011

"Smedleyman, you got some weird like breaks there...

Thank you for the concern. It's a bad workman that blames his tools, but I'm sort of piloting a brick filled washing machine through a car wash here.Had the same problems with breaks a while back. Of course I'm low on rest, but then, I always am, so...

"Given the fact that our military has a plethora of non lethal means to incapacitate subjects I don't think you've thought this through."

Given the fact I've been on many military operations and I'm familiar with a wide variety of tactical situations and strategic responses, I believe I have been thinking this through for years.
Philosophically, we should only kill when we have to. When we can do nothing else. If we brought him into custody and we killed him I would be outraged. Similarly, executing a prisoner is unconscionable because he is powerless. We have overwhelming force. He has none. He is not a threat, so we cannot legitimately kill him as a threat. Only in retribution, which I object to.
Practically, if someone resists force, it is not retribution. We have no way to bring him in to custody without employing greater force.
If the directive was to capture OBL by any means necessary, our and enemy casualties aside, we would have had to deploy a far less covert strategy.
Which means using more force. Which means using more men and material. Which means greater odds of civilian casualties at the time of the operation because of immediate resistance and greater odds of civilian casualties in mopping up after the insertion (to get our wounded out, etc).
Which means, most likely, political movement as well. Which means we consign Pakistani leaders to a definite reaction. One which either we don't like or one which certain elements and perhaps some or many people don't like. Which means greater unrest, more casualties and perhaps internal chaos. Or perhaps an active anti-American direction. Which could lead to very many casualties. Or, if forces can't be marshaled, something that requires a small number of dedicated units, like a nuke, directed at American forces.
Which could be, y'know, bad.

"Given my complete lack of influence and significant financial resources that kinda limits me as to what I can realistically do"

You can still do something. Lack of vision is more an impediment than lack of resources. Look at Mandela. He had thirteen siblings. His dad died when he was a kid. Was dismissed as a troublemaker. Spent 27 years in prison.

“We have more power than will; and it is often by way of excuse to ourselves that we fancy things are impossible.” - La Rochefoucauld

I'm not trying to be critical. A lot of people are subject to that mindset. Best I can say is don't give in to dispair. You (et.al) do seem to be in that realm. Despite perhaps
having the best of intentions in making constructive criticism. We can equitably disagree on how to achieve positive outcomes. But I will never accept not trying to achieve one.
By whatever means. There's no excuse to fail. And hell, I'm not some kind of judge. Maybe your thing is working with disabled kids. That's great. Whatever one does to
better the world is never not enough. A kind word under certain circumstances can be everything.

"My only point is and has been that more death and violence has never in human history solved anything...I am not always the most articulate or convincing of chaps"

(I certainly don't revel in the death of an enemy. Or anyone. Apart from being distasteful, if I want them dead, I'll kill them myself. That typically cuts down on the end zone dances.
But mostly it's my Lincoln quote. OBL's death won't bring anyone back. If having him alive could bring back even one of the people we've lost, I'd be for it. But I have a very high confidence that ending his machinations saves future lives. If that could have been done without killing him that would have been great.)

I'll take your meaning then to be that violence begets violence.(on preview, I see it is) Violence has 'solved' many things. But it does lead to more violence. Typically when one can't put down the sword after doing something that may have been necessary.
Was killing OBL necessary?
If it's characterized as the assassination of one guy in a cave, no. But OBL was, by nature of his own vision and major resources,an extremely corrosive influence on Pakistan and on the world.

And Pakistan is the issue here. Consider: AQ says "Boy, if you kill OBL, we're going to FREAK OUT. And with NUKES too. So watch it."
Been saying that for a while too. Amongst other intimations of their cozy situation in, amongst other places, Pakistan.
So Pakistan is the Big Magilla in this case (the thread and the matter at hand).
I'm Obama, what's my strategy?

Well, we know what Bush the Greater did. Which was to contain Hussein and ignore a number of smaller threats.
Then Bush the Lesser gets into it, again, over economic warfare and the WMD thing. Ok, well we know how that progressed.
And so we had AQ with actual roots in Iraq whether they had them there before or not.
Exploitation by Bushco aside, AQ's ranks grew because of the piss-poor moves and the fact that attention was not focused on them much. (Bush really gives this away by saying he's not interested in OBL)
So we know that.
We also know AQ's influence (I won't say 'strength' per se) is growing. And again, they're "The Base" becauase they're cohering an ideology, not because they're a guerrilla force or
single combined force in and of themselves. They're 'inspirational' for lack of a better word. Televangelists.

So we've got them alluding to nukes and retribution and such. Essentially encouragement more than a dead man switch type plan.
I'm Bob Counterterrorist (they're "Bob" not Joe). I'm looking at the probables. I'm looking at the good work done chasing material and other things down other avenues.
I ask "Say, doesn't Pakistan have nukes?" Yep, sure do Bob.
I ask "Say, aren't high ranking elements within Pakistan sympathetic to or members of The Base?" Yep, sure are Bob.
"Well, gee." I ask. "Couldn't they get nukes from Pakistan?" Sure could Bob.
So I make a little check on my list of possibles and go have lunch.

I'm Obama. I know all this. And, importantly, I give a shit about doing something about it like an actual leader of a country rather than a mouthpiece.
Also, I like playing cards. I do it well.

Someone across from me just drew three cards, raised, and said another guy at the table is going to cover the raise for him.

Man, I really don't like uncertainty. And I happen to have four aces. I've got a big pile of cash on my side of the table (I've been running raids into your backyard for years) and I got the last draw (we suspend some state department operations).

Ok, I see your "We're going to nuke something if you kill Osama" and I raise. Your buddy going to cover that?

And that's really what we need to know and expose to the world one way or the other. We might be winning or losing this particular hand. But we do need to know how committed Pakistan is to covering AQ's bets. And I can think of fewer ways that are more efficient in doing that than this kind of operation.

We can say Obama fucked up a perfectly good hunk of rope when he okayed the cutting of this particular Gordian Knot - and let's be clear that's exactly, and only, what
Bushco handed off to him, but it did get to the heart of the matter.

That's with the caveat that Alexander's empire did fall apart without him and we do risk some of the same problems. This is not at all to say we need to vote for Obama next
election (although it's looking likely I personally will).
But rather that we need to be consistent and follow up with our counterterrorist strategy and our efforts at legitimately engaging the Muslim world to ensure stability.
So now we can hash this out at the table. Panetta is talking to the house committee now, hopefully some folks from the other side of the table get a game plan together and pick a single direction.

But we walk away again thinking it's over now and we don't have any commitments (peaceful, support) like we did with Afghanistan before or let ourselves get distracted by a $300 check in the mail or let the media do the puppet dance again and this will indeed turn into just more blood in the sand.

And there have been damn too many people lost for us not to work hard to make this right.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:20 PM on May 3, 2011 [22 favorites]

From Spiegel Online: Justice, American Style - Was Bin Laden's Killing Legal?

Interesting take. One thing I'm not clear on, though, is the last bit:

For years, the very principle of international law has been to pursue justice rather than war. On Sunday, Obama said that bin Laden's fate is a "testament to the greatness of our country." If the United States had used the same power it deployed during the invasion of Iraq to force tyrants such as Saddam Hussein or Moammar Gadhafi -- not to mention the mass murderer Osama bin Laden -- into the dock of an international court, one might have believed him.

Was Saddam Hussein not tried, convicted, and executed? Or is Spiegel Online upset that it wasn't in an international court? Similarly, are they arguing that invasion of Libya to arrest and try Gadhafi would be "testament to the greatness" of America? That doesn't seem to line up with the rest of the editorial slant of the piece.
posted by Errant at 1:21 PM on May 3, 2011

Good news guys, Glenn Beck is on the case.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:21 PM on May 3, 2011

AElfwine Evenstar writes "Oh I'm sure certain 'situations' have been 'resolved', but in the end violence always begets more violence whether causally connected or no.

"Maybe you could give some examples?"

Seriously? OK off the top of my head and with a little prompting from Wikipedia:

146BC Carthage.

The Anasazi.

Tasmanian Aborigines.

The Bo

Which only includes a few of the groups wiped off or mostly wiped off the planet.

And of course violence by the US against Britain, Mexico, assorted first nations, Spain, Russia, Mormons, the Confederate States, and Hawaii pretty well determined who was going to run the land mass known as the USA.

zeoslap writes "With regards the sea burial nobody would have cared if they'd have just shown a photo beforehand. "

Not that the US cares, and bin Laden wasn't a signatory, but that kind of stuff is against the Geneva convention.
posted by Mitheral at 1:24 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Daily Beast - Navy SEAL gallery.
posted by cashman at 1:29 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

WikiLeaks docs: Nuclear reprisals if bin Laden killed -- "Documents released nine days ago report al Qaeda's third-in-command promised nuclear reprisals if bin Laden were killed."
posted by ericb at 1:32 PM on May 3, 2011

"RIPPING IT UP: When late on Sunday night The New York Times tore up one front page and crashed an entirely new one about Osama Bin Laden’s death, it was only the third time in the last 43 years the paper literally stopped the presses.

The Times printed 350,000 copies of a non-Bin Laden paper — which included a story with the headline, “Another Side of Tilapia, the Ideal Farm Fish” — before it dumped that edition and got the news of President Barack Obama’s late night announcement in a new edition, according to an internal memo. Seventy percent of the newspapers the Times wound up printing for Monday had the bin Laden news. The Times printed an additional 165,000 copies of the paper on Monday, as well.

posted by zarq at 1:36 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't think that affirming the value of all human life and stating that we need to change the way things are done is prattish.

Believing in the value of all human life isn't "prattish." It's the "I guess I'm the only one who cares enough about human life to feel sorry about Bin Laden's death" shtick that reeks of sanctimony. You're able to ladle a lot of compassion on a man responsible for many thousand of deaths; when you can show the same kind of compassion for the men and and women who risked their lives to kill him, for the men and women who ordered their mission, and for all of Bin Laden's victims, I might believe you mean something by it.

It's entirely logical to assume that at some point in the future human society can evolve to this point. Violence like the breakdown of causality is a feature of nature.

And, not to start another derail, but human evolution doesn't work this way. We may hope and work for a day when humans can settle every conflict non-violently, but there's no scientifically sound reason that I am aware of to believe that humans will "evolve" into pacifism.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:36 PM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

I can't imagine if it is in the weighted bag, that it won't eventually be found, even if it is decades from now.

The only thing to be "found" in the future will be the weight* as OBL is organic and the sea is filled with things that convert organic matter into food. Hagfish as an example.

*Perhaps the bag also if it was not organic. If the weight was sea rations, well that will go away after a few years.
posted by rough ashlar at 1:37 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Daily Beast - Navy SEAL gallery.

BTW -- I highly recommend last year's Discovery documentary series: Surviving the Cut. Amazing training that the U.S. elite squads go through. Video clips here.
posted by ericb at 1:37 PM on May 3, 2011

"Documents released nine days ago report al Qaeda's third-in-command promised nuclear reprisals if bin Laden were killed."

Yeah, I heard that one. TBH Al Queda do not strike me as folks who keep much in reserve - if they have the capacity to nuke us then they will just nuke us. I'd file that one under noise and garbage.
posted by Artw at 1:38 PM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

I agree with Artw. And in regards to the idea of OBL's death as an inspiring martyrdom... I can see it, but only on an intellectual, theoretical level. Based on human behavior, I'm thinking you're more likely to see people disillusioned by his death than inspired. He didn't go out like a martyr -- which would be something like a suicide bomb, or leading an attack himself in some way -- but, instead, he went out like a cowering little dog. He was hunted and tracked, cornered then shot.

Martyrdom isn't just about dying. It's about dying when and how you want to. OBL did not choose either.

Plus, I think a lot of the people who felt inspired to join his crusade may have done so because of some personal charisma he had, perhaps some kind of persuasion. People, properly inspired by a leader, will do a lot of crazy things. But you take away that inspirational figure and a lot of wind can go out of those sails.
posted by grubi at 1:42 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Plus, I think a lot of the people who felt inspired to join his crusade may have done so because of some personal charisma he had, perhaps some kind of persuasion. People, properly inspired by a leader, will do a lot of crazy things. But you take away that inspirational figure and a lot of wind can go out of those sails.

That, and if you were involved with OBL you gotta be sweating what the US now knows about. They not only got the head honcho, but they got everything he had with him at the time - intact. AQ may recover from this, but I doubt it will be at all effective for a very long time.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:48 PM on May 3, 2011

I agree with art, too. If they had the ability and capacity to nuke us they'd do so.
posted by zarq at 1:48 PM on May 3, 2011

"Well, gee." I ask. "Couldn't they get nukes from Pakistan?" Sure could Bob.
So I make a little check on my list of possibles and go have lunch.

Have a good lunch bob's, we have an eye on it." says Joe from the NRO.
posted by clavdivs at 1:50 PM on May 3, 2011

cashman: "The Daily Beast - Navy SEAL gallery."

Little something for the ladies.
posted by theredpen at 1:50 PM on May 3, 2011

Of course, that they regard a nuclear armed country as their backyard and have thoroughly infiltrated the government of that country should still scare the shit out of people.
posted by Artw at 1:50 PM on May 3, 2011

Oh, I'm not saying "don't pay attention." I'm saying I don't think his death will inspire anything new.
posted by grubi at 1:53 PM on May 3, 2011

Bin Laden's neighbors noticed unusual things -- "Questions persist about how authorities could not have known who was living in the compound."
posted by ericb at 1:58 PM on May 3, 2011

And in regards to the idea of OBL's death as an inspiring martyrdom... I can see it, but only on an intellectual, theoretical level.

It's only takes one or two to do damage, and never under estimate the ability of 16-20 year old men to start believing crazy shit.

...but, instead, he went out like a cowering little dog.

More like a Wall Street executive hunkered down in a mansion with clean sheets, female company and steady meals.

Literally the only thing that could make this more delicious is if the SEAL who pulled the trigger is gay.

Story wasn't real, but I did get a pleasure out of Hillary Clinton watching in the Situation Room as all this went down.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:01 PM on May 3, 2011

the SEAL who pulled the trigger is gay.

My guess is he is happy. But why is his being happy at pulling a trigger "more delicious"?
posted by rough ashlar at 2:04 PM on May 3, 2011

The 'compound' resembles and was functionally the same thing as what I'd call a prison.
posted by panaceanot at 2:04 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

never under estimate the ability of 16-20 year old men to start believing crazy shit

or indeed 47 year old or 64 year old men for that matter.
posted by unSane at 2:05 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Although with hindsight the compound looks suspicious it would take quite a leap to suspect that OBL was living there.
posted by zeoslap at 2:07 PM on May 3, 2011

odinsdream writes "Encryption techniques are published openly, and the very point of open-source software is that anyone, anywhere, can verify that it's consistent with the published mathematics. It's not even remotely likely that the source for TrueCrypt includes backdoors, even if the NSA wrote every line of it."

While that is true there could be a weakness that the NSA knows about and is intentionally not making public. See for example their contributions to the DES S-boxes. Even so any encryption technique with the exception of the classic one time pad is vulnerable in this way. And TrueCrypt allows you to choose your encryption method. The truely paranoid might mix them up choosing a different one every time they intialized a container in order to minimize even that vector.

And that's all moot if either all or some of the data was unencrypted (possible) or the passwords were stored in plain text anywhere the team had access to (also possible).
posted by Mitheral at 2:16 PM on May 3, 2011

About the encryption: The NSA has an insanely good reputation on cracking codes and stuff.

Unfortunately, you just can't 'crack' things encrypted with even basic, known-to-all mathematical algorithms like 256-bit AES. Well, you could, but it would take double the age of the universe to crack a single email, assuming you managed to harness the entire processing power of every PC on earth. Even though the algorithm is completely public & understandable by all, you can't reverse-engineer your way back to the original message; you just can't.

That's with a brute force approach. The issue, as somebody mentioned above, is with the human side of things - somebody forgets to encrypt an email, or loses a thumb drive with their encryption key on it, or similar fuckups.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:17 PM on May 3, 2011

The story of the Mexican “anchor baby” Navy SEAL that captured Osama bin Laden

In case you missed it, this was revealed as a hoax (see that twitter feed for more).

AFAIK, since even the current name of f/k/a "Seal Team Six" is classified, so is membership.
posted by dhartung at 2:20 PM on May 3, 2011

Unfortunately, you just can't 'crack' things encrypted with even basic, known-to-all mathematical algorithms like 256-bit AES.

Well, side-channel attacks. And tapping unencrypted parts of the system. And stuff like using lasers to get audio by recording vibrations in window glass near where someone is talking.

If it's just cracking the encryption on his captured drive, it could indeed be impossibly hard depending on how it was done. I have some faith that the NSA knows where the holes are though.
posted by GuyZero at 2:23 PM on May 3, 2011

Oh look, they are changing the story already
posted by marienbad at 2:23 PM on May 3, 2011

Panaceanot wrote: The 'compound' resembles and was functionally the same thing as what I'd call a prison.

Or a hospital. The bathroom was full of pills. Bardophile thinks she recognises a dialysis machine in one of the screen shots. The woman - not one of his wives - who was in his room at 1 AM leaped to defend him, and was shot in the leg. A nurse? The room had two beds, but one of them had only a thin foam mattress; it's hard to imagine that it would have been one of Osama's relatives.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:29 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I did get a pleasure out of Hillary Clinton watching in the Situation Room

Interestingly, or revealingly, it turns out they weren't watching live feed of the raid, but Panetta at his CIA desk relaying information from the field.

Anyway, that photo of the bedroom? Sure looks like a prybar-opened tower box to me, complete with an open CD tray at the top. Protocol probably involves grabbing the hard drives only. Somebody on the team has a little electric screwdriver and they're outta there.

Encryption is only as good as the procedure to use it, and physical access to the hard drive is 90% of the way there. If they also picked up the right papers, they might have all they need. But chances are there's also good, usable stuff that's unencrypted (assuming any of it is).

Late callback:
And my kids couldn't believe Bin Laden was only 54. I admit I thought he must be older, too--he looked like hell ten years ago and he was younger then than I am now!

Kidney disease, notoriously, although his continued survival seemed to cast doubt on that. I would sort of have hoped for an autopsy to give us some answers. Seemed to be a bunch of pills on a shelf in the footage I saw.
posted by dhartung at 2:31 PM on May 3, 2011

The Decade's Must-Read Journalism About the Hunt for Osama bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 2:34 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

I don't really care if was unarmed. It would matter for most everyone else, but not him. He doesn't get to throw his arms up and expect the normal rules of engagement to apply now when he long since started ignoring them. "Well, he should have armed himself..."
posted by IanMorr at 2:34 PM on May 3, 2011

The issue, as somebody mentioned above, is with the human side of things - somebody forgets to encrypt an email, or loses a thumb drive with their encryption key on it, or similar fuckups.
posted by UbuRoivas

this is so true as evident by Yousefs' laptop left in Manila. which revieled the Bojinka plot. While one piece of data may be locked up another piece may led to what ever you folks do with the computer stuff. IOW, the more stuff grabbed, the greater the possiblity that one piece will be vunerable. I am assuming this took some time to gather from the compound.
posted by clavdivs at 2:35 PM on May 3, 2011

sigh*
or what dhartung said.

heh "revieled"
posted by clavdivs at 2:36 PM on May 3, 2011

Oh look, they are changing the story already
posted by marienbad at 5:23 PM on May 3 [+] [!]

And? yesterday lupus_yonderboy was demanding information now or he wouldn't believe it. The Administration was releasing anything that came there way. Then when the guys got back, the details came to light and they said, hey, we got new info, our old info was not as good as we thought.

What do you want? If they wanted to lie, they could stick to the story and no one would know. Its not like SEAL Team 6 is gonna start giving interviews. And the story is basically the same, but it turns out that a wife rushed the team, was shot in the leg, and lived.

Don't you want the Administration to update us as better information becomes available? I don't understand why getting better info is a problem. Didn't you expect more details to become available and those details to demonstrate that some parts of the first reports from the scene were wrong?
posted by Ironmouth at 2:41 PM on May 3, 2011 [13 favorites]

On the subject of the alleged "hypocrisy" in the Islamic burial (when killing is forbidden)...it's a part of the international law of war, of which the Geneva Conventions are a subset.

Once you've killed somebody, you cannot desecrate their corpse, and if possible at all under the circumstances, you should dispose of the corpse with dignity.

I don't have the time to look the laws up this very second, but a respectful Islamic method of disposing of the corpse is pretty much an obligation here, aside from being good PR in general.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:44 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Kidney disease, notoriously, although his continued survival seemed to cast doubt on that.

I always thought this was key as to were he would hole up. The hiding in caves seemed romantic but deisel generators create heat signature. Of course we had to assume his need for dialysis was true, which does seem evident.

hiding in plain sight i have not ruled out. most likely he would have been known as some high value yet not that important person. If he had help from ISI, they could say to anyone poking
"oh that is just so and so, he was under house arrest, protection, what ever, Ok?" But it would have to be enough juice to ward off a snooping general on the block. The house was raided before, that could have been a trick on the ISI.

the wheels with-in wheels.

my bet is moscow rules, set up a thin network of in-place safe houses way before 9-11.
posted by clavdivs at 2:49 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

This article, which re-imagines the last 48 hours as if the operation had failed, actually made me a little bit ill. Killing Bin Laden: An Alternate History.

While an interesting read, I think in reality it would be more like this:

The United States were today involved in a friendly fire incident north of Islamabad. Pakistani and American forces engaged each other, resulting in the loss of 10 American and 13 Pakistani soldiers. The White House has called the incident "A tragic event caused by miscommunication".

...on the bottom of page 23 in the NYT.
posted by ymgve at 2:50 PM on May 3, 2011

I don't know, ymgve; if there'd been a violent confrontation with Pakistan fighter jets it definitely would have been big news. If it prevented the mission from succeeding -- or even destroyed bin Laden's body after retrieval -- that would have been very bad as well.
posted by gerryblog at 2:52 PM on May 3, 2011

Bin Laden's neighbors noticed unusual things

He was a quiet man, he mostly kept to himself...

What about Al Qaeda? Did they leave a forwarding address? A phone number?
No.
Did they live quietly? What were their personal habits?
They were good boys, but they made a lot of racket at night. Are you the police?
No ma'am. We're SEAuh... musicians.

Little girls wear veils while carrying Hannah Montana backpacks to school.
Kills me. Democracy. Human rights. Any of the other things that America stands for or tries to (at its best), no, we can't seem to permeate enough to get that message across for hate, love or money.

But Hannah Montana? Oh yeah, the Mouse With No Soul can push that crap on some kid in a small ideologically polarized town in Pakistan with no goddamn problem at all.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:55 PM on May 3, 2011 [10 favorites]

Fafblog woke up long enough to present the Medium Lobster's take on it all.
posted by JHarris at 2:58 PM on May 3, 2011

Re: retaliation - radical Islamists and/or terrorists will use any excuse to express anger. A jackass in the US burns a Koran, and people get murdered. No country would accept the body, maybe because they feared US reprisal, maybe because he was a rich, arrogant, evil prick, but, whatever, we did the most honorable thing we could. Show me the respectful burial of Americans killed in this war. In fact, I would sincerely like to know if that happens.

Re: believability - Idiots are going to refuse to believe this. Barack Obama could walk on water, with the stigmata, a halo, and a choir of angels, and they'd dismiss it.

I hope this leads us to a non-conservative election in 2012. Obama's doing pretty well, for a guy stuck with 2 wars and a tanked economy; with a 2nd term, he could keep it up. Any of the Republicans mentioned so far would be a nightmare. again. We need to move back to the center, and then back to a side that believes in progress and justice, and dealing with global climate change. I'm certain that the Republi-Corporate machine will takes us farther from it, and Obama will take us closer.
posted by theora55 at 2:58 PM on May 3, 2011

Oh look, they are changing the story already

Military operations are chaotic. It's probably going to take a while to piece together what actually happened.
posted by empath at 3:03 PM on May 3, 2011

This is how the Truthers got started...
posted by Artw at 3:04 PM on May 3, 2011

AElfwine Evenstar : My only point is and has been that more death and violence has never in human history solved anything. It has led inextricably to the place at which we currently find ourselves.

Ok, I'm willing to concede that the word "solved" here is going to be a sticking point because I can nearly guarantee that we aren't going to agree on it's definition, but death and violence most certainly "solved" the problem of early settlers who wanted to live on the North American continent and didn't want to deal with those pesky folk already living here.

And yes, it has led to exactly where we currently find ourselves, and though it would taste of ashes in the mouth for anyone who really thought about it, I can promise you that the vast, vast majority of people living in the US today would consider the lives of the innocent natives who died in violence at our forefathers hands a fair trade for the good lives that we are living today.

So your premise is flawed because it ignores the fact that violence has led to where we are today, which may, on balance, be a less violent world. (or not, I don't know) but either way, it certainly worked to "solve" any number of problems for people who used it.

Now, keep in mind that I don't think this is a good thing, or call it as such, but it is impossible for me to ignore the facts in the face of the huge mountain of evidence telling me that your statement is just wrong.
posted by quin at 3:07 PM on May 3, 2011

Re: believability - Idiots are going to refuse to believe this. Barack Obama could walk on water, with the stigmata, a halo, and a choir of angels, and they'd dismiss it.

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim” - Lyndon B. Johnson (really!)
posted by joe lisboa at 3:07 PM on May 3, 2011 [11 favorites]

This is how the Drowners got started...
posted by panaceanot at 3:10 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Oh look, they are changing the story already"

Definitely easier to be lied to - and easier for the govt to withhold new information that may contradict old information they've presented.

Perhaps we are unused to an administration that tells the truth as it comes more clear.
.
posted by jojo chandran at 3:11 PM on May 3, 2011 [5 favorites]

Polls look weirdly divided on how this is affecting Obama's approval numbers. Different outlets are typically within a few points of each other (except Rasmussen, which is another story), but right now RealClearPolitics has them listed as:

POLL.......................DATE......SAMPLE....APPROVE....DISAPPROVE.....SPREAD RCP Average..............4/15-5/3......XX.......49.3.........45.1.........+4.2 Newsweek/Daily Beast.....5/2-5/3......600A.......48...........49...........-1 CNN/Opinion Research.....5/2-5/2......700A.......52...........43...........+9 Wash Post/Pew/SRBI.......5/2-5/2......654A.......56...........38...........+18 Gallup...................4/30-5/2.....1500A......47...........44...........+3 Rasmussen Reports........4/30-5/2....1500LV......49...........50...........-1
posted by Rhaomi at 3:12 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Polls look weirdly divided on how this is affecting Obama's approval numbers. Different outlets are typically within a few points of each other (except Rasmussen, which is another story), but right now RealClearPolitics has them listed as:

POLL.......................DATE......SAMPLE....APPROVE....DISAPPROVE.....SPREAD
RCP Average..............4/15-5/3......XX.......49.3.........45.1.........+4.2
Newsweek/Daily Beast.....5/2-5/3......600A.......48...........49...........-1
CNN/Opinion Research.....5/2-5/2......700A.......52...........43...........+9
Wash Post/Pew/SRBI.......5/2-5/2......654A.......56...........38...........+18
Gallup...................4/30-5/2.....1500A......47...........44...........+3
Rasmussen Reports........4/30-5/2....1500LV......49...........50...........-1
posted by Rhaomi at 6:12 PM on May 3 [+] [!]

The small numbers ones are trackers, with three-day rolling averages. Rasumussen is an LV poll, too, which is ridiculous and explains to me why they always have these crazy numbers. Give it three days to sort itself out. Trackers to snapshot polls are apples to oranges. The Newsweek poll makes no sense.
posted by Ironmouth at 3:15 PM on May 3, 2011

According to the Great Orange Satan, the first polls sampled entirely after Sunday night won't be available until Thursday.
posted by localroger at 3:15 PM on May 3, 2011

re: Crypto.

It's pretty hard to keep cryptography controls sufficiently tight in any organization. 'Big' people also tend to be notoriously bad at maintaining cryptographic controls, since they often don't come from the nerdly backgrounds in which the security measures actually make sense. Thus, it's easy to imagine some in-roads to encrypted data (if it turns out the data was encrypted at all!) might exist. Things like plaintext passwords, passwords shared with lower-security usages, or even just leaked information...

re: the changing story.

there have, contrary to the above assertion that all information has come from one source ('American sources') been many conflicting sources of information. Many of which seem to have been anonymous people int he US government. People inside large organizations are just as susceptible to hear-say as anyone else, and perhaps even more so, since they believe they've gotten the inside scoop in spite of ten layers of the Telephone game between the situation room and the water cooler.

More information will come, and an official narrative will be crafted, and it's against this narrative that evidence should be piled for or against. It's simply too soon to really critically take this apart.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:28 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Shit Parade: I'm being honest. This event ranks slightly below your favorite team winning the superbowl or what have you.

Perhaps Rashard Mendenhall is just pissed they lost this year.

Rashard Mendenhall has created a stir with comments made on his official Twitter page regarding Osama bin Laden's death.

The Pittsburgh Steelers running back on Monday tweeted: "What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side..."

Mendenhall didn't hold back, even making a reference to the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

posted by gman at 3:29 PM on May 3, 2011

"I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

High-velocity metallic cigar shaped projectile with incendiary filling hits immovable concrete and steel construction? We'll never know what really happened.
posted by panaceanot at 3:35 PM on May 3, 2011

lol you guys expect a running back to understand physics?
posted by entropicamericana at 3:39 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

We'll never know what really happened.

Until those 4d-maneuverable flying nanocam robot drones get invented.

*taps foot impatiently*
posted by Aquaman at 3:42 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

CNN interviewed the dude who tweeted the raid.
posted by gman at 3:45 PM on May 3, 2011

Aquaman: "

Until those 4d-maneuverable flying nanocam robot drones get invented.

*taps foot impatiently*"

SERIOUSLY. I thought this was the future?
posted by nile_red at 3:47 PM on May 3, 2011

Oh look, they are changing the story already

It seems like the Obama administration should have gotten its shit together before announcing this thing. First they announce a 7:30pm conference that doesn't start for an hour, and then we hear 20 different stories that are constantly changing.

How hard is it to put together an official story that is accurate and comprehensive? I thought they'd be able to do it between 7:30 and 8:30.

And there still is no actual evidence yet? WTF?

From Spiegel Online: Justice, American Style - Was Bin Laden's Killing Legal?

I do agree that Obama's comment about justice "being served" could come back to haunt him ... (if his political opponents or the American people cared one whit about justice... but they don't.)

Rashard Mendenshall obviously has the right to his own opinion (and makes some valid points, imo), but if he cares about his career, he should STFU. (Welcome to American, land of the free ... as long as your name isn't O'Connor or Abdul Rauf.)
posted by mrgrimm at 3:54 PM on May 3, 2011

UbuRoivas wrote: Once you've killed somebody, you cannot desecrate their corpse, and if possible at all under the circumstances, you should dispose of the corpse with dignity.

The US forces assassinated five people that night. What did they do with the other four corpses?

Do you think that US forces generally take the corpses of people they have killed and dispose of them at sea? In fact, do they generally remove them for a religiously-appropriate burial at all? And why not simply turn the remains over to bin Laden's next of kin, some of whom actually live in the USA?

If your answer is that they didn't want his radically iconoclastic and anti-dualistic comrades to turn his burial place into a shrine I shall stare at you in disbelief.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:57 PM on May 3, 2011

Senator Feinstein is the Senate Intelligence Chair. According to her, torture/waterboarding did not reveal intel that led to Bin Laden:

"To the best of our knowledge, based on a look, none of it came as a result of harsh interrogation practices," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a wide-ranging press conference.

Moreover, Feinstein added, nothing about the sequence of events that culminated in Sunday's raid vindicates the Bush-era techniques, nor their use of black sites -- secret prisons, operated by the CIA.

"Absolutely not, I do not," Feinstein said. "I happen to know a good deal about how those interrogations were conducted, and in my view nothing justifies the kind of procedures that were used."

posted by darkstar at 3:58 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

"How hard is it to put together an official story that is accurate and comprehensive?"

What is the reason you need this immediately?

"We launched an operation to kill OBL. We killed him. No Americans were killed."

The White House is not 60 Minutes. There is no obligation to personally email everyone the entire mission debriefing.

I think I blame CSI for people's expectation that every tiny detail will be revealed to the world, immediately and with piles of supporting documentation. Or maybe it's Twitter's fault. We know in seconds what some stranger had for lunch, so we expect the same with ultra-secret military operations.

The guy we were all waiting to be shot got shot. The president let us know asap. Done and done.
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:04 PM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

Ask 5 people who were in a meeting at your job today what happened at the meeting and in what order. You think you won't get varying details with items that conflict? Seriously? Much less events that happened at 1:15 in the morning during a gunfight in Pakistan.
posted by cashman at 4:08 PM on May 3, 2011

I too have an opinion on the death of Osama bin Laden.
posted by desjardins at 4:12 PM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

It turns out that another bad guy was killed on May 1st... and people celebrated then, too.

I think it's only natural that those who have lost friends and had friends personally suffer as a result of OBLs actions would feel a sense of satisfaction from the news of his death. I fall into that category, and feel the same way. That doesn't mean that I don't value human life. Quite the opposite.

I'm not out in the streets, chanting "USA! USA!". but his death was and is certainly a "yes!" moment for me. Had I been in NYC, I would've gone to the WTC, as a friend of mine lost their partner there, and so many other friends felt motivated by that act to go to Afghanistan and Iraq, when called. I didn't want either of those conflicts... but the fact remains that OBL's actions helped justify them, and literally millions suffered as a result.

OBL helped kill a lot of innocent people, while his own life displayed a remarkable lack of humanity and consideration for others. His ideology viewed even those who shared the same faith as justifiable pawns, to achieve his ends... which usually meant promoting hatred, fear, and discord around the world.

I'm glad that those I know who have suffered as a result of OBL's actions will finally get some sense of closure. Yes, a trial would've been nice, but the thing is, OBL had that option, and didn't take it. Instead, he was surrounded by armed guards who were under his orders to fire upon our troops... which they did, for 45 minutes.

He didn't surrender when he could've... and he could've and should've surrendered nearly twenty years ago, frankly. He had *lots* of options, over a very long period of time. He was behind the murder in NYC of the despicable Rabbi Kahane in 1990. He was involved with the bombing of the WTC in 1993, which killed six people. The murder of 62 civilians in Luxor in '97. The 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 250 people and injured over 5,000. And, of course, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.

There are people, both in the US and around the world who are glad to hear the news of Bin Laden's death. Not happy, perhaps... but finally vindicated, with perhaps some sense of closure, despite personal losses that don't go away.

No matter what your personal feelings on the matter may be, it's pretty safe to say that there are a whole lot of people out there who don't deserve to be judged for feeling differently than you.
posted by markkraft at 4:13 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Does it involve catterpillars?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:14 PM on May 3, 2011

How hard is it to put together an official story that is accurate and comprehensive? I thought they'd be able to do it between 7:30 and 8:30.

Obviously very. I don't know why people are surprised by this, it's a common occurrence with major media events. Remember the murders and carnage that was said to have occurred in Superdome after Katrina? Overstated. Remember when Congresswoman Giffords died?

What people think should be clear often isn't. The Administration should realize that and start taking its time with information, but the people need to realize it's hard to get the actual facts of what happened.

Do you think that US forces generally take the corpses of people they have killed and dispose of them at sea?

Bin Laden was a special case. I thought that was obvious.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:14 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

The Osama Interviews:

*Al Jazeera Interview conducted by Tayseer Alouni (Oct. 2001):

*Osama bin Laden's Lamb Parable (post-9/11)
*Al Jazeera Interview in Arabic (not-subtitled, 1998)
*Peter Bergen and Peter Arnett interview Osama bin Laden (1997)
posted by lemuring at 4:23 PM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

What people think should be clear often isn't. The Administration should realize that and start taking its time with information, but the people need to realize it's hard to get the actual facts of what happened.

Yes, yes, yes. A quick revisit to the 9/11 thread also reveals a huge amount of signal to noise gap. Or to any breaking news thread.

Error, miscommunication, attempts a controlling the narrative, "telephone game" style goofs, mis-quotes, misattributions, and just plain old malicious fibbing all figure in to initial reports. Lots of the false information get associated with strong emotion, which makes it harder to shake off belief in the false information.

I like to share the quote "never mistake for malice that which can be explained through incompetence" every now and then and, when it comes to getting a massive bureaucracy to get its story straight, incompetence is going to stumble his way into the process every single time.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:28 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Within the first few minutes of the Alouni interview it's clear that Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the actual planning of 9/11.
posted by lemuring at 4:30 PM on May 3, 2011

Within the first few minutes of the Alouni interview it's clear that Osama Bin Laden is claiming that he incited 9/11. That's all that is clear.
posted by found missing at 4:33 PM on May 3, 2011

Error, miscommunication, attempts a controlling the narrative, "telephone game" style goofs, mis-quotes, misattributions, and just plain old malicious fibbing all figure in to initial reports.

What I don't understand is why we're now expected to filter all this stuff out for ourselves, rather than being able to trust our media not to just parrot any old goddamned thing that shows up in their twitter feeds.
posted by dialetheia at 4:35 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

...when it comes to getting a massive bureaucracy to get its story straight...

Yep. When a massive bureaucracy has a completely uniform story is the moment when you should start looking suspiciously for what the hell is really going on. To borrow a line from Reverend Mother Odrade, "Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you a cover up. Real boats rock."
posted by Babblesort at 4:37 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

dialetheia: "What I don't understand is why we're now expected to filter all this stuff out for ourselves, rather than being able to trust our media not to just parrot any old goddamned thing that shows up in their twitter feeds."

Look, They're not SAYING they can confirm or deny these "twitness reports" but they have an OBLIGATION to report all sides equally and WHY IS THE GOV'T TRYING TO HIDE THE TWEETS FROM YOU OMG.
posted by nile_red at 4:38 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

"it's clear that Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the actual planning of 9/11"

Right. That's like saying GWB had nothing to do with the "actual planning" of the Iraq invasion. No, he was certainly not personally leading the meetings taking place all over the world where the specific tactics were locked down. But if we want to find the person responsible for the idiotic invasion of Iraq, GWB is the person to blame.
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:42 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

"Within the first few minutes of the Alouni interview it's clear that Osama Bin Laden is claiming that he incited 9/11. That's all that is clear."

found missing,
The interviewer tells OBL in the video that the US has clear proof he was involved in the attacks on 9/11. His response is: "The actions from what I understand, and this is something I've called for (translated in the video as "incited") in the past, were taken in self-defense."

He seems very unaware of the specifics behind 9/11, but ideologically supports it. There's a huge difference.

Also contained in the same video is OBL saying that the word Al-Qaeda (which means "base" in Arabic) was what they called their base in Afghanistan as in: "Hey, you headed back to base?" (the way it might be used among US personnel.

It doesn't seem like the narrative that's being told about Osama bin Laden is correct. He's being portrayed as the head of a large organization, and I wonder if that was ever true.
posted by lemuring at 4:49 PM on May 3, 2011

If I were to form an opinion of what happened based purely on non-anonymous sources, I think I'd only have the President's speech to go on (when he held his press conference). I only recall the facts that an operation was carried out and people were shot and/or killed, OBL among them.

The rest of the facts that were immediately released about the operation, about human shields and whether or not OBL was armed, I can't remember where they came from. Did they come from anonymous sources? Officials wishing not to be identified? I'm not referring to details that have been released in the days after the operation in official White House correspondence, but when they were first made known during the initial media frenzy.

Sometimes I wonder if anonymous sources in this situations are less about ensuring accurate public oversight and more about succumbing to the media pressure to give any sort of data for immediate dissemination, confirmation be damned. I envision news agencies hitting the phone lines hard after the leak, asking their contacts to please give them something tangible. I remember a rule for requiring two sources before any reporting of data; I wonder now if some consider an source's source as credible, or even another news agency.

It's getting to a point where anytime I see the citation of an anonymous source for something like this, particularly a sensitive and high-profile military operation, I have to remain skeptical because I cannot know if this source is revealing fact or opinion, much less whether any editorial bias is being inserted by the reporter. The instant-news-first-feed certainly does its part to drive publication of fuzzy facts and outright hoaxes as credible.

I understand the need for anonymous sources, don't get me wrong. I guess in this case, however, it's just adding to the noise and only serves to drive speculation and opinion in certain directions before the facts are out.

Sometimes I do feel exhausted trying to sift through the cruft, all because some media outlets are less concerned with research and more about revenue.
posted by CancerMan at 4:54 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

But if we want to find the person responsible for the idiotic invasion of Iraq, GWB is the person to blame.

yes, yes he is. "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out!" -- President Bush, 2002.

The general impression I have with OBL is that he didn't have much to do at all with the 9/11 plot. Somebody else cooked it up, planned it, etc, and OBL had no agency in it.

Bush had plenty of agency with our misadventure in Iraq.
posted by mokuba at 4:59 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe you are old enough to remember a time (not that far back in the time, 20-25 years more or less) in which the political discussions appeared to be far less shouted, less emotional, more reasoned, far less polarized.

In the early years of the republic our politicians shot each other. By the 1850's they were only beating each other with sticks on the floor of the senate. So in some respects mere name-calling is actually progress.

Yeah. The mid-20th century was kind of anomalous. You had WWII and you also had the emergence of the TV Networks that basically meant that debate was very, very constrained to who could get on television. Now everyone has a voice. And what do they want to do? Scream at eachother, mostly.
Huh. I'm guessing that they [9/11 victim family members] are, to a person, okay with OBL being dead. But no, I haven't talked to them all personally.
Some probably don't think it matters one way or the other being truthers and all, why would they care? The reality is no group is going to be homogenous.
And there's the rub. Are you nicer and more open with the "standard" interrogator once you've spent time with the asshole? Remember that when KSM was captured and subsequently questioned, the only thing that came out of his mouth was a demand for a lawyer.
Well, there's no way to prove that or even test for it. It's nothing more then masturbatory fantasy and a way to say maybe it's theoretically possible that torture helped, but we have no way of knowing. No different then potentially imagining torture might work on it's own (except we know it doesn't)
_{I know that there may be thousands of lives in the balance, and I also know that certain operations may have been accelerated because of his capture. The longer he holds out, the less useful any tactical information becomes.

I'm faced with a decision. Do I wait (and hope) for him to willingly disclose information, or do I try to "break" him by employing a technique that's been used on our own military and will not cause any lasting physical harm?}
See what I mean? Masturbatory fantasy. Just imagining stuff and beating off to it isn't an argument.
What was the alternative to burial at sea, given that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia refused to allow burial, and that Islamic tradition only gives you 24 hours? Armed, forced burial in Pakistan? Giving his body to the Taliban? Bury him in the US?
Afghanistan?

posted by delmoi at 5:00 PM on May 3, 2011

Ugh, second paragraph is in that post is a quote :/
posted by delmoi at 5:01 PM on May 3, 2011

lemuring, he seems to have taken direct responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Here is a wikipedia roundup.
posted by found missing at 5:06 PM on May 3, 2011

Great piece on the meaning of all this in Seattle's lefty rag The Stranger: Black Hawk Down.

Pull quote: "If a Republican were in office right now, Osama bin Laden would still be in his compound, burning trash and slowly dying of old age."
posted by Aquaman at 5:06 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

Pres. Obama to Observe 9/11 Anniversary in New York
posted by rosswald at 5:08 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Rosswald, I favorited that comment (and link) so hard!

Obama will stand in front of the newly dedicated memorial on the 10th anniversary of the attack and the whole world will know that he was faithful to the victims by hunting down the leader of the organization that planned the attack.

It will be a very powerful, moving moment in US history.
posted by darkstar at 5:15 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Do you guys remember the last RNC, which seemed like some weird amusement park dedicated to never forgetting? Looks like that particular point is no longer going to be so easy to score.
posted by codacorolla at 5:19 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

CancerMan I understand how you feel, but we don't just have the president's remarks...there have been several press briefings, which aren't anonymous military sources...along with some non-anonymous interviews by Panetta. Plus Obama's gonna talk about it more on 60 minutes.

....now there's the problem where they conflict, and it seems like people are going either "this is understandably confusing and shakes my confidence in press briefings" or "wires got understandably crossed and this will be cleared uplater" about it.
posted by nile_red at 5:20 PM on May 3, 2011

Metafilter: What I don't understand is why we're now expected to filter all this stuff out for ourselves
posted by cashman at 5:22 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

cashman: "Metafilter: What I don't understand is why we're now expected to filter all this stuff out for ourselves"

isn't that what the media is for?........oh.
posted by nile_red at 5:26 PM on May 3, 2011

lemuring, terrorist and guerrilla organizations are necessarily going to have a more amorphous, less hierarchical command and control structure. Al Qaeda in particular has seemed to operate more as an umbrella organization creating a political vanguard and inspiring the creation of local affiliates like Al Qaeda in Iraq or Al Qaeda in Yemen, or trying to be a stepfather to preexisting organizations like Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

clavdivs: That man attacked my country for 15 years.
...
zarq: Again, hyperbole. It hasn't been 15 years since 9/11

Ahem. The first time most Americans heard his name was in connection with the first bombing of the WTC in 1993. He was also notably connected to the 1998 embassy bombings and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. We also know that he had some connection to Aidid in Somalia and al Qaeda or affiliates may have trained and/or supplied the Somali militants with the RPGs they used to shoot down the US helicopters-- a technique developed by the mujahideen in Afghanistan to use against the Soviets. Indeed, his first fatwa advocating killing of Americans as a duty of the jihadi was 15 years ago in 1996.
posted by dhartung at 5:27 PM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

Joe in Australia: Now that you know that bin Laden was not armed does it change your position in any way?

Maybe Joe's position would change if Osama had been taken out in a "targeted" airstrike along with a few dozen Gazan civilians.
posted by moorooka at 5:52 PM on May 3, 2011

There was a way that the Administration could have handled their information releases such that they don't have guys like Brennan standing in front of the press and just making shit up like, "He used a woman for a human shield." Didn't anyone else hear that and immediately think, "Oh, come on"? I half expected him to follow that up with "confirmation" that he was sighted raping farm animals before he scurried inside his fortress.
posted by indubitable at 5:53 PM on May 3, 2011

[quote]and it seems like people are going either "this is understandably confusing and shakes my confidence in press briefings" or "wires got understandably crossed and this will be cleared uplater" about it.[/quote]

The conflicting reports, oddly enough, increase my faith that they're mostly trying to tell us the truth. If it were a lie, it would be neatly packaged, with no loose ends. In this case, there's lots of dangly bits, exactly like you'd expect after a somewhat seat-of-the-pants but (unexpectedly?) successful operation.

Real life is messy. It's sometimes hard to figure out exactly what really happened.

One thing I am pretty sure about is that they weren't especially interested in arresting him. I think they'd have done so if he'd immediately and unconditionally surrendered, but I suspect they were looking for any excuse they could find to just frag him. If he so much as dithered, I think they'd have shot him.

And no, I don't have proof of that. I'd still bet a few bucks that that's how it played out, but not a large sum.
posted by Malor at 5:58 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Argh, I used the wrong quote tags again. Didn't preview. Bad me.
posted by Malor at 5:59 PM on May 3, 2011

clavdivs writes "The hiding in caves seemed romantic but deisel generators create heat signature."

This is pretty easy to deal with if your caves have water. You can dump the heat to the water. Harder is hiding the fuel coming in.

"We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

Does this wanker also have a hard time believing water is wet? Because everyone familiar with the structure of the building knew it was going to collapse exactly how it ended up collapsing. They knew this because it was designed to resist exactly the failure mode of a fuel laden jet liner burning up inside (aircraft striking NY skyscrapers even in the 60s not being unprecedented). It was just designed for the fuel load of a 707 not the much larger fuel load of a modern 767.
posted by Mitheral at 6:11 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think I'm with you on that one Malor, everything I hear on it sounds like, yeah, it was an option to take him alive, but if he twitched or used the wrong quote tags, we had to protect ourselves first.
posted by nile_red at 6:26 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

The conflicting reports, oddly enough, increase my faith that they're mostly trying to tell us the truth. If it were a lie, it would be neatly packaged, with no loose ends.

Yeah, and if it was a lie how would the details keep changing? What would they be changing them to match?
posted by delmoi at 6:37 PM on May 3, 2011

If it was a lie they'd probably say Bin Laden was armed to the death. Admitting he wasn't armed is kinda ballsy.

"No, he wasn't armed. But it was Osama Bin Laden, what'd you think we were going to do if he resisted?"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:44 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Delmoi wrote: Yeah, and if it was a lie how would the details keep changing? What would they be changing them to match?

Different people would be making details up on the spot and then changing their stories once they found that they conflicted. You know, the way they're doing it now. We've gone all the way from "Osama fired at the US forces while cowering behind his wife" to "Yeah, he was unarmed, but there was definitely resistance going on somewhere so we shot him in the eye".

Here's a question for all the gung-ho types. Let's leave morality to one side for a moment. Don't you think it was stupid to kill someone who was allegedly at the heart of a massive terror network, when you could interrogate him instead?
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:55 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

[a quiet moment in the firefight]

bin Laden, give yourself up!

No!

Please! [a shot rings out, a scream]

No! Go away!

Osama, please give yourself up!

Nuh-uh!

Pretty please?

Etc.

What could go wrong?
posted by five fresh fish at 6:59 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Joe in Australia: Don't you think it was stupid to kill someone who was allegedly at the heart of a massive terror network, when you could interrogate him instead?

would it make a difference if the guy were a blind quadriplegic?

(putting ~~morality~~ the 9 innocent bystanders aside, of course)
posted by moorooka at 7:00 PM on May 3, 2011

Funny how many people don't really seem to believe in randomness, despite claims to the contrary. Must be neato to live in such a completely deterministic world.
posted by aramaic at 7:02 PM on May 3, 2011

Nuh-uh!

I'm only watching the movie version of this if Osama is played by David Cross.
posted by found missing at 7:02 PM on May 3, 2011 [4 favorites]

It should also be kept in mind that the worst case scenario for this operation was ending up engaging the Pakistani military and possibly starting a war.
posted by rosswald at 7:03 PM on May 3, 2011

I'm pretty sure what's happening is they heard "a woman was shot in crossfire" and thought "oh a human shield" and didn't notice there could be a difference until later when it was clarified.

(I mean, that's happened to me a bunch of times, with no malice behind it...I'm not a gov't official and they should really do better but it was after a stressful and low sleep period of time)
posted by nile_red at 7:08 PM on May 3, 2011

Concerning the alleged image of Bin Laden's corpse going around the internet the last couple of days:

A photographer consulted by CNN said the gruesome photograph is most definitely not real.

"I have seen a great number of poorly Photoshopped images in my time as a photographer and I can tell by the pixels that it is a fake," said Kenna Lindsay, a New York-based photographer who works with composite images.

Heh. I see what you did there, Kenna Lindsay. I see what you did there.
posted by rkent at 7:10 PM on May 3, 2011 [17 favorites]

Last night Al Jazeera was interviewing some folks who lived near Bin Laden's compound. I'm disappointed no one said: "He was kind of quiet. Kept to himself."
posted by marxchivist at 7:41 PM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

"The general impression I have with OBL is that he didn't have much to do at all with the 9/11 plot. Somebody else cooked it up, planned it, etc, and OBL had no agency in it."

OBL wasn't known for planning terrorist acts. Rather, he primarily funded them, oftentimes working through affiliate groups. He also funded and oversaw the terrorist training camps.

OBL was a multimillionaire himself, and it's estimated that his own central organization brought at least $30m a year under his direct control to fund the org, which he would target towards particular plots and plans, as well as for infrastructure. It's estimated that 9/11 cost about $500M to pull off. Al Qaeda also paid for the training camps at which the 9/11 hijackers were selected and trained.

Frankly, that's enough involvement for me.
posted by markkraft at 7:45 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, after a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden.
posted by Flashman at 7:48 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's estimated that 9/11 cost about $500M to pull off.

Don't want to derail on this, but -- seriously? Seems rather high to me.
posted by inigo2 at 7:50 PM on May 3, 2011

Now that you know that bin Laden was not armed does it change your position in any way?

No, probably because hours later I'm still too busy trying to comprehend the mental gymnastics/ cognitive dissonance/ deliberate obtuseness it must've taken for a certain poster to condemn the US for killing bin Laden because killing is against bin Laden's religion.
posted by NorthernLite at 7:52 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

From the Post: The entire plot, from start to finish, cost al Qaeda only $400,000 to $500,000, the investigation found.

That article does agree with the $30 million a year coming to Al Queda from OBL, though.
posted by inigo2 at 7:53 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Flashman, do you just want someone to tell you your were right? Because, I mean... you can tell yourself that. It'll mean just as much.
posted by polyhedron at 7:53 PM on May 3, 2011

Question:

A terrorist leader who is known to use weapons personally has a private compound, filled with armed employees. You go in there, tell people to lay down their arms, but they all start firing at you, and the leader does not give orders to make his fighters stand down, even after 45 minutes.

During the course of the fight, your men go into a room, where they are charged by the leader's wife, who is blocking the view of the leader, whose weapon cannot be seen. Your men are trained like soldiers, to fire when threatened. What do you do?!

I'd argue that you shoot both the wife and the terrorist leader. The charge of the wife could be effectively blocking/masking/buying time for the leader to fire a weapon. Your job isn't to be a police officer and to put the life of you and your soldiers in danger, and killing the leader could help to stop any other fighters that might still be around. Realistically, he was a valid target throughout the entire firefight, particularly because he and his men didn't surrender at its onset.

In truth, he's been a wanted criminal for over twenty years, and has had more than enough opportunities to peacefully turn himself over to authorities.
posted by markkraft at 7:58 PM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

$500M = $500 mil (meaning thousand)
posted by found missing at 7:59 PM on May 3, 2011

$500M = $500 mil (meaning thousand)

Good one.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 8:04 PM on May 3, 2011

(*nods* I meant $500K, but a lot of the other figures were in the M ballpark, so...)
posted by markkraft at 8:05 PM on May 3, 2011

markkraft, about this 45 minute gun battle thing.

I doubt they were shooting for the entire time they were on the ground, which if it hasn't been revised yet is a period of 38 minutes, 8 minutes longer than intended. I'm just speculating but in all likelihood the CQB was over in a few minutes, if not a matter of seconds. They only killed 5 people. They needed time to restrain the other people present/acquire all the physical intelligence/destroy the helicopter.
posted by polyhedron at 8:06 PM on May 3, 2011

How hard is it to put together an official story that is accurate and comprehensive?

I think one part of this speculation/suspicion is that a lot of people are being exposed to this story, and many of them just aren't otherwise involved with the news that much. Otherwise this would seem to them as unremarkable as it is. People involved in the news don't get to call up a reporter or read a paper and get the facts. They are the facts. The facts are changing. Early reports are in bold strokes and contain inaccuracies, later reports make more fine-grained corrections. Some reports are made much of early on, and later on are discredited. Some people mis-hear things over phone lines or misread things in short messages. Stuff moves swiftly. You have to stay with a story through more than one report to get its full shape. Think about the banking crisis: did we have the "story straight" the day after Bear Stearns collapsed? Did we have the story straight the day after 9/11? Far from it.

I spent my early college years toiling in the dark recesses of a newsroom on the overnight shift, monitoring police news and the AP Wire. I sat watching the versions of a national story take on depth and shading during every 10-minute refresh, on our little green proto-internet wire-service terminal, feeling like my fingers were on the pulse of the world in the quiet early morning hours, seeing things change moment by moment, yet knowing that no one within 100 mile radius would hear all the details this stuff until it was sent to print at 3 AM for tomorrow morning's newspaper. I can verify that even a podunk report of a late-night car accident on a rural road goes through three or four versions before it gets published. Back in that day, we had something in our favor that made it look like we had the story straight: we only put out one newspaper a day. We had that entire day to do all the research we could and put together a "straight" story. If we needed to, we could even tear up the whole section and rewrite it at the last minute. And sometimes, right after we finished that entire print run, a new handful of facts would emerge - hardly ever anything that would make you scrap the print run, so that stuff had to go in tomorrow's story.

In the meantime, between editions, reporters in newsrooms were sorting through and dealing with the same conflicting and messy reports we're seeing come across live in this incident. They spent that intervening day, its hours ticking down, figuring out what facts were verifiable and reliable and what was not holding up. They got librarians digging and went through phone books and called overseas contacts and curried favor with flunkies until they got the next layer of information.

Well, we no longer have a day. Or even a broadcast news morning/evening headline cycle. We wanted up-to-the-minute information sharing, and we got it, and the casualty is that we now have no time to do proper and thorough verification before sending that information out. News reporting isn't even history's first draft any more - Tweets are, and Facebook posts, and satellite uplinks with no identification of people or places, and fuzzy recountings relayed three or four times from people on the ground, emotionally scrambled, and their commanders, and those commanders' commanders, and the people responsible for telling us. There's going to be some noise in this signal, and it does take time, and knowledge, and sense, to sort it out. We never got perfect news reporting - the available information always changes as time goes by - and we have even less perfect reporting now, because we're getting a lot of information raw, unvetted, unsorted, unconsidered, unclear.

If you can't handle the idea that the facts and charactertizations of events are going to undergo examination, reorganization, and revision as events unfold and new information comes to light -- if you can't understand that this has always happened with breaking events and always will happen, and we're only privy to it now because of the existence of social media whereas before it was all hidden from us in proprietary and private systems until the relevant information brokers decided it was okay for you to see it, and that very management of the final outgoing message was what created the illusion that there ever was a "straight story" -- you should probably just not try to follow the news blow-by-blow. You are on the inside of the newsroom now - you have to be patient and you have to do your own digging and you have to apply some judgment and you have to understand that wheels take time to turn. You want undigested news, you've got it, but you have to understand it's rough and chunky and might not stay down.

Time and Newsweek are still around to provide news in digest form if you can wait a couple days. If you don't want to wait, fine, but don't be shocked that facts do change as more time is spent gathering facts.
posted by Miko at 8:15 PM on May 3, 2011 [52 favorites]

(*nods* I meant $500K, but a lot of the other figures were in the M ballpark, so...)

Ah, my bad. I thought that might be what you meant, but yeah, the $30M threw me off. (Plus I haven't done the whole M=thousands, MM=millions since I worked at a bank. Been a while.) Back to our regularly-scheduled thread...
posted by inigo2 at 8:18 PM on May 3, 2011

From the "after a firefight" article previously cited:

"he and other officials reiterated that this was a violent scene, that there was heavy fire from others in the house, and that the soldiers did not know whether the occupants were wearing suicide belts or other explosives."

Valid target who didn't surrender, but who had his armed followers attacking the soldiers... charged by someone who may or may not be rigged with explosives.

We're not dealing with a fight in a mixed civilian / insurgent zone here, and we're not talking about a police incident. I *do* know soldiers who are still a bit scarred to this day, because they had to shoot first and ask questions later from people who charged towards them. I also know one who got lured in to a trap by a wounded kid, only to lose a kidney and have a friend die.

If you get dangerously close to a soldier or move quickly... if you're not stationary... if you're not making sure that your hands are safely above your head when they point a weapon at you at close range... if you order people to attack... well, then you can certainly be at risk, because soldiers aren't trained to behave with the same risk assessments as police.
posted by markkraft at 8:19 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm probably committing the awful sin of reposting, but the NYT interactive graphic on people's opinions is kinda neat. Same two-axis thing as ever, but I like that you can hover and read the comments.
posted by Miko at 8:30 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

*taps foot impatiently*
*checks under stall*
Oh, sorry man.

"Do you think that US forces generally take the corpses of people they have killed and dispose of them at sea? In fact, do they generally remove them for a religiously-appropriate burial at all?"

Uh, yeah, it's standard operating procedure for mortuary affairs. In an operational setting you have a standard collection point. In this case an aircraft carrier.
In disposition: "Commanders will be mindful of Islamic traditions concerning the care and disposition of remains and will attempt to honor religious and cultural tradition so long as it is not inconsistent with the requirements set forth yadda yadda" or words to that effect.
We're also constrained under the Geneva Conventions which covers burial at sea.
Which, y'know, we're honoring now. Which is nice.

"And why not simply turn the remains over to bin Laden's next of kin, some of whom actually live in the USA?"
Well, once he's been identified, he's got to be buried under Islamic tradition by SOP and the Geneva Conventions. And again, practical constraints. SEALs regroup, bring the body to a collection point, it's identified (which is why you bring it along) and he's buried in accordance with regulations, treaty, and tradition.
Turning his body over to his NOK is not in the program. Whether it would piss off jihadists or not. In fact, most jihadists? They'll keep on jihadin' They don't need much reason to get their blood up. So why piss off the regular Muslim folks by breaking with procedure in this case? Because not following (secular) procedure means we're hypocrites (and fuck you Mr. Graham) and what REALLY pisses normal religious folks off is desecration.
We had enough of that crap under Bush.

"How hard is it to put together an official story that is accurate and comprehensive?"
Because leadership is civilian and wasn't directly in on the operation and the military takes orders and does not make policy decisions such as where and how to release information on a specific operation to the public.

Some goon on the radio was asking why we don't have the footage direct from the cameras so we can see exactly what occurred on this covert operation without it being "edited" by the government.
Seriously.

I think asking questions is extremely valuable. I think the administration will give answers in a timely manner. But c'mon, it's way too soon.

"Don't you think it was stupid to kill someone who was allegedly at the heart of a massive terror network, when you could interrogate him instead?"

You draw up the plan there Clausewitz.
You figure out some way to get them in and out, eliminate armed opposition without causing major collateral damage in an upscale neighborhood full of hospitals and restaurants and an officer training school within earshot of gunfire, search a safehouse (built explicitly for that purpose), find him, corner him, and most importantly, get a lifelong fanatic to surrender to a small unit force in hostile territory, and mop the area up before you split, and do it all playing beat the clock before dawn, without starting a major war - you feel free send it to JSOC.

How many lives are worth his capture?
Or are you of the opinion that casualties don't impede the result of an operation?

Why don't these quarterbacks throw the ball to the guy that's open? They would score touchdowns all the time. Kinda stupid that they don't really.

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." - Machiavelli
posted by Smedleyman at 8:35 PM on May 3, 2011 [9 favorites]

I can't defend this theory too far, but I don't think he would have survived captivity anyway.

What seems certain already is that a particular slice of the wingnut pie will make this their JFK-mystery story, so it will be with us a long time to come.

I don't think that predictable fact alone is sufficient reason to have chosen any other course of action. No matter what's produced or never produced or what investigations happen now or in inquiries twenty years later, the wingnuts have taken flight.
posted by Miko at 8:41 PM on May 3, 2011

How hard is it to put together an official story that is accurate and comprehensive?

Just check the various presumably fact-checked stories in the media for what distance they report Abbottabad to be from Islamabad. Figures I have seen so far: 59 km, 60 km, 61 km, 50 km, 50 miles, 150 km, 100 km. And this is when the goddamn thing can be checked with a cursory google search, or with Google Earth, or with the reporters on the ground. All this from the air-conditioned comforts of modern life. But nobody seems to even have a handle on this simple thing. The Times of India is claiming that India told US about Osama's location twice in recent years. No source. No citation. But a bylined article anyway. Journalism? Yeah, right.

But it is apparently okay to endlessly parse statements about a complex and covert military operation, where the personnel involved are probably still being debriefed (by independent debriefers to ensure that details are accurate) and video footage studied and god knows what else.

Fuck this shit.

I'm done with the media coverage for now. I'll wait for long form journalism to come after about a month.
posted by vidur at 8:41 PM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

All of this makes me wonder what Jimmy Carter's presidency would have been like had his operation in Iran been a similarly rousing success. Would it have made a difference?
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:56 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ugh, the "human shield" bit really pisses me off. It struck me as suspicious when it was first put forward. As other members pointed out, Brennan was very careful about his use of words during that press conference, not explicitly implying intent on the behalf of Bin Laden.

This just reeks of Assange's alleged sexual assault. If true in either case, it's obviously horrible, but it's also a charge that can be easily leveled against someone and will forever taint the person's name.

It doesn't matter what the final result is. People are going to remember the human shield thing, and it will influence their memory.

Ugh, it leads credence to the worst conspiracy theories, but it seems to say "We don't have enough evidence about this guy, or we don't think his real crimes are serious enough."
posted by formless at 9:16 PM on May 3, 2011

"All of this makes me wonder what Jimmy Carter's presidency would have been like had his operation in Iran been a similarly rousing success."

Judging from how people responded to this incident, there'd be outrage over the killing of the kidnappers, while Ronald Reagan would presumably be questioning whether the hostage crisis was just a political set-up, and whether anyone was taken hostage in the first place.

(Oh, that's right. Such a thing would never happen, because people were generally more rational back then. Nevermind...)
posted by markkraft at 9:17 PM on May 3, 2011

Coincidentally, bin Laden was also purportedly a TERRIBLE house guest.
posted by found missing at 9:25 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I spent the time watching the .gov blue screen. I didn't realize network tv was an hour of vapid filler. I wonder if that was a deliberate turn of the screw.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:26 PM on May 3, 2011

How long was Bin Laden living in that compound?
According to this NYT article the house was built seven years ago.
So, was Bin Laden there for five or six years?
posted by PHINC at 9:27 PM on May 3, 2011

Smedleyman wrote: You draw up the plan there Clausewitz.
You figure out some way to get them in and out, eliminate armed opposition without causing major collateral damage in an upscale neighborhood full of hospitals and restaurants and an officer training school within earshot of gunfire, search a safehouse (built explicitly for that purpose), find him, corner him, and most importantly, get a lifelong fanatic to surrender to a small unit force in hostile territory, and mop the area up before you split, and do it all playing beat the clock before dawn, without starting a major war - you feel free send it to JSOC.

We've had statements that they were ready to accept his surrender so I presume they had a plan. How about something like "if he's unarmed and everybody else has been subdued, try to resist the temptation to shoot him." Seriously, if he was the USA's worst enemy then wouldn't capturing bin Laden have been the most significant intelligence coup ever? Surely it would have been worth almost any cost. That is, if there was any actual military rationale behind this whole operation and it wasn't just "yay! we get to kill the guy that dissed us!"
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:32 PM on May 3, 2011

what distance they report Abbottabad to be from Islamabad

One of the problems is the mountain range in the middle. By air it's 60km airport to airport, but by road it's around 120km city center to city center. Depending on the road route, and whether you measure to the actual outskirts location of the safe house, would account for more variation. I don't think it's a fact-checking problem, more like a fuller explanation problem.
posted by dhartung at 9:32 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

What are we doing here? Writing scripts for the next iteration of The ^Not X Files? "I Want To Disbelieve!"
posted by five fresh fish at 9:41 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

We've had statements that they were ready to accept his surrender so I presume they had a plan. How about something like "if he's unarmed and everybody else has been subdued, try to resist the temptation to shoot him."

I'm not a member of any special forces unit, but I can think of all sorts of reasons why he might have been shot. First, it's not clear in the middle of a firefight who's armed and who's not. Second, presumably the surrender plan involved telling him to freeze, and shooting him if he didn't - after all, there's no reason to think he wouldn't have a nice martyrdom backup handy, like a detonator. My guess is, he was told not to move, and he moved, and they shot him, and that was the correct tactical decision.

Seriously, if he was the USA's worst enemy then wouldn't capturing bin Laden have been the most significant intelligence coup ever? Surely it would have been worth almost any cost.

I don't know that capturing him would have been any better than killing him from that perspective, so I can't really agree with your cost-benefit analysis - not that I would even if there was a clear intelligence benefit to capturing him.

That is, if there was any actual military rationale behind this whole operation

There is a clear operational benefit to having him dead rather than free to operate. If the opportunity had existed to just drop a giant bomb on him without causing deaths of innocents, etc, that would have been perfectly justifiable.
posted by me & my monkey at 9:44 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

it's also a charge that can be easily leveled against someone and will forever taint the person's name.

Seriously? This is a bit crazy. I don't think the reason bin Laden's image is tainted is because a government spokesperson implied he may have shielded himself with his wife.
posted by JenMarie at 9:46 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

That is, if there was any actual military rationale behind this whole operation and it wasn't just "yay! we get to kill the guy that dissed us!"

Those computers they took from his house were a pretty big deal, and I bet it's easier to get info from them than from OBL himself.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:47 PM on May 3, 2011

Thanks, Miko. It does put things into perspective, at least as far as how well we can disseminate news given the data as it stands during that time. It also emphasizes the power of how a simple turn of phrase can skew perception in the most unexpected way.

I guess I've always known, but when faced with a fast-moving chain of events and trying to keep pace with updates as they're thrown and re-thrown about, I got kinda overwhelmed. Particularly since the topic is so high-profile and incendiary.
posted by CancerMan at 9:48 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

This just reeks of Assange's alleged sexual assault. If true in either case, it's obviously horrible, but it's also a charge that can be easily leveled against someone and will forever taint the person's name.

Yeah, cuz if anyone's name was free of taint, it was Osama bin Laden.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:50 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Fighting for Bin Laden: A special report -- in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, FRONTLINE takes you inside two fronts of the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban
posted by homunculus at 10:04 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

That is, if there was any actual military rationale behind this whole operation and it wasn't just "yay! we get to kill the guy that dissed us!"

Greetings to whatever universe you are living in.
posted by unSane at 10:06 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Seriously? This is a bit crazy. I don't think the reason bin Laden's image is tainted is because a government spokesperson implied he may have shielded himself with his wife.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply his other crimes aren't horrendous or that his image isn't already tainted. Like I said before, I'm not sad he was taken out. The guy was dangerous and hopefully this reduces the loss of life in our ongoing war.

But claiming he used his wife as a human shield turns him into a caricature of a monster. It's part of building this new mythology of terrorism. It's propaganda and unsettling.
posted by formless at 10:22 PM on May 3, 2011

"Seriously, if he was the USA's worst enemy then wouldn't capturing bin Laden have been the most significant intelligence coup ever? Surely it would have been worth almost any cost."

I haven't heard of a single time where a commanding officer would tell his people to be absolutely certain not to kill someone they're going into a firefight with. That's a good way of either losing the person involved, or getting someone killed. It's certainly not a good plan to have if it's essential to get in and out, ASAP, before the local military arrives.
posted by markkraft at 10:27 PM on May 3, 2011

What really struck me yesterday was when I started searching for the lolcats photoshop jobs. I expected to find dozens of funny political jabs at Republicans. What I found were dozens of images of the President photoshopped on to bin Laden's face. To say these images took on a whole new meaning in the new context is an understatement. Never again will they be able to say this shit.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:39 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

On getting from Islamabad to Abbottabad: It takes between 90minutes and 3hours, depending upon what vehicle you're using and the weather conditions. As the crow flies it's not really far. But you are driving through the foothills of the Himalayas here. I had never realized how much more massive our mountains are than anywhere else in the world until I started visiting the "impressive mountains" of various other parts of the world. And this is despite knowing, on paper, that the Himalayas are much higher. It just hadn't registered, until people started telling me that what looked to me like a hill was Mt Rainier, for example.
(Of course realizing this just made me even more sad that we do such a terrible job promoting tourism, but that's a different story.)

On Islamic burial: The 24 hours thing isn't as set in stone as the official spin would have you believe. Since refrigeration has been invented and the decomposition of the corpse can be delayed, it has become less problematic for burials to be delayed. And it's not about ritual cleanliness of the mourners, or people coming in contact with the body, it's about respect for that which used to house the soul of a human being, however much you might revile that human being. Burial at sea is unusual enough in Islam that they're going to struggle to get any consensus on it. That said, it isn't outright forbidden. And as far as the weighted bag, goes, in order to be in accordance with Islamic practice, it would have to be organic material. Muslims are not buried in coffins, but in plain white sheets, the idea being that all the remains would decay. This is why the shrine thing is an interesting anomaly, in that there really shouldn't be any tombs and associated shrines for Muslims, from even a mildly orthodox perspective.

On Pakistan's nukes and the likelihood of Al-Qaeda having access to them: There was a time when I would have laughed at this notion. The part of the army that was responsible for the nuclear installations was notoriously set apart from the rest of the army, etc. Everyone understood that this security was something the army took extremely seriously. And you have to understand, that in Pakistan, when the army takes something seriously, it is probably the only institution that then goes on to accomplish it with a significant measure of competence (see: the building of the Karakoram Highway). So we really weren't worrying about the safety of the nukes. What has changed since then, however, is that the army has shown a disturbing inability to protect itself, even on it's own bases. There have been attacks even on Hamza Camp, the ISI headquarters. So I'm not nearly as certain that they could protect the nuclear installations. I *still* don't think, however, that anyone is handing over nukes to AlQaeda voluntarily. Perhaps that's naive of me. It just doesn't mesh well with what I already know.

On Salman Rushdie and declaring Pakistan a terrorist state: Actually, I'm not objective about Salman Rushdie, so I'm not going to say anything about his comments in particular. other than grrrr. But declaring Pakistan a terrorist state would be really counter-productive. Sanctions and such were tried before, and the thing is, they only hurt the people who have no influence. It seems to me, from my conversations with other Pakistanis, that there is a groundswell of anger about how inept and corrupt the government is, and about the impunity with which terrorist attacks seem to take place, even at our schools, about the lack of basic services. One friend's Facebook update was, loosely translated: "Yeah, yeah, so Osama's dead, to hell with that, just tell me when the electricity will be back on." The thing that would be productive for the US, I think, would be to find a way to channel that anger away from itself, and focus it entirely on the Pakistani government. I'm not sure how that could be accomplished, but I'm guessing more drone attacks would not be the solution.

On Osama bin Laden's stature as a martyr: I'm thinking that his decision NOT to turn himself into a suicide bomber will have lost him a lot of points with those for whom suicide bombing was a good thing, inspired by OBL himself. It's going to be hard to get around the hypocrisy of that. Or at least I hope it will.

And now I need to go get stuff done for the day. Will keep checking back in here, though.
posted by bardophile at 10:39 PM on May 3, 2011 [24 favorites]

Oops, I forgot about this (from ericb's link):
"People were skeptical in this neighborhood about this place and these guys. They used to gossip, say they were smugglers or drug dealers. People would complain that even with such a big house they didn't invite the poor or distribute charity," said Mashood Khan, a 45-year-old farmer.

THIS makes sense. That neighbours would assume that they were smugglers or drug lords, and that they would be annoyed that they didn't distribute charity or feed the poor, which is what invite means in this context. It's the ultimate criticism in Pakistan: they don't care about the poor. It's THAT unusual.

Abottabad police chief Mohammad Naeem said the police follow the procedures very strictly but "human error cannot be avoided."

Hahahaha. Yeah, that, or bribing the local police. As long as they had managed to convince the cops they weren't Indian, it would have been easy to buy their way out of the whole "foreigners must be registered" thing.

Abbottabad has so far been spared the terrorist bombings that have scarred much of Pakistan over the last four years.

Which is interesting, since the last time I was in Abbotabad, we had to leave before the break of dawn because people were firing on the local police station in the wake of anger at the government about the Red Mosque siege.

Little girls wear veils while carrying Hannah Montana backpacks to school.

Well, they may or may not WATCH Hannah Montana, though, depending on how conservative their families are. And in any case, pop culture seems to travel a lot faster than anything else, anyway. Besides which, it's hard to convince Pakistanis that the US stands for democracy or human rights, when they have hard evidence to the contrary in their direct experience (see: funding military dictators, assisting in the overthrow of democratically elected governments, and drone attacks killing civilians).
posted by bardophile at 10:49 PM on May 3, 2011 [7 favorites]

see my multiple posts in between that one and yours where it is shown that the information did not come from torture.

Your defense is that we didn't torture this person this last time around?

I aint "defending" shit. I'm saying that Republican assholes who say this was all possible because of torture are full of shit. Are you arguing torture is effective. 'Cuz you are walking right into their argument if you are.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:13 PM on May 3, 2011

Seriously, if he was the USA's worst enemy then wouldn't capturing bin Laden have been the most significant intelligence coup ever? Surely it would have been worth almost any cost.

Ironmouth wrote: Like, say the life of a single Navy SEAL? Because that's what you are asking for.

Oh hey, Ironmouth! Remember yesterday when I said that bin Laden could have been captured? Here's what you said: The President stated he ordered capture or kill. There was a fire fight. Bin Laden was killed.

I don't blame you for repeating your government's official line, but the truth has now changed: he wasn't killed in a firefight; in fact he was unarmed. So are you now saying that the President didn't order them to be captured? Or that the assassins disobeyed orders and killed bin Laden anyway? And if it took a DNA test to identify bin Laden then what were they doing killing an unarmed and unidentified man? Was it just "hey, he looks tall and skinny, better shoot him"?
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:15 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ironmouth wrote: Like, say the life of a single Navy SEAL? Because that's what you are asking for.

Oh hey, Ironmouth! Remember yesterday when I said that bin Laden could have been captured? Here's what you said: The President stated he ordered capture or kill. There was a fire fight. Bin Laden was killed.

I don't blame you for repeating your government's official line, but the truth has now changed: he wasn't killed in a firefight; in fact he was unarmed. So are you now saying that the President didn't order them to be captured? Or that the assassins disobeyed orders and killed bin Laden anyway? And if it took a DNA test to identify bin Laden then what were they doing killing an unarmed and unidentified man? Was it just "hey, he looks tall and skinny, better shoot him"?

Simple question: how is a SEAL team member supposed to know bin Laden is unarmed when he refuses to surrender? <
posted by Ironmouth at 11:19 PM on May 3, 2011

the truth has now changed: he wasn't killed in a firefight; in fact he was unarmed

The fact that he may not have personally been armed has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether there was a firefight. Are you really so dense as to not understand that?
posted by dersins at 11:20 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I mean, Joe, this is a guy whose been photographed more times with an AK-47 in his hand than I've been photographed with a beer in my hand. Only an idiot would just walk up to this man and assume he was unarmed after he refused a surrender command. Would you personally do it? And if you wouldn't, why do you ask someone else to do the same. You are asking a person to risk their entire life on this decision. I'd shoot the fuck first.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:27 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

He's just playing gotcha. Ironmouth claimed this or that, it turned out to be untrue, ergo yadda yipyipyip. It's entirely unimportant noise.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:27 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hey guys, my personal narrative is supported by the lack of concrete information. Told ya so!

Grumble, grumble... isn't that what cable news is for?
posted by polyhedron at 11:32 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's entirely unimportant noise.

Yes to this. Maybe Ironmouth and Joe could take this quibbling to email, and leave the thread for substantive updates and interesting debate?
posted by Meatbomb at 11:35 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Put another way, the rule in American law is this, if an arresting party has probable cause to believe that a fleeing felony suspect is a risk to himself or others, now or in the future, he may fire. Flat the fuck out. So, do you think there was such a probability, given the man has ordered thousands of deaths and has always been armed in photos, and professes a distorted religious creed broadcast to billions that says that martyrdom is the highest of acts? I do.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:36 PM on May 3, 2011

this is a guy whose been photographed more times with an AK-47 in his hand than I've been photographed with a beer in my hand.

And more importantly, a guy with lots of money to spend, who's become famous for his encouragement of people killing themselves with explosives, and who might well want to go out in a blaze of glory if possible. This is not the kind of person you want to let move after you've told him not to move, is it?
posted by me & my monkey at 11:38 PM on May 3, 2011

I can't believe he was unarmed. If I was wanted by the entire US government I imagine I'd keep at least one weapon on me at all times.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 11:39 PM on May 3, 2011

Lovecraft in Brooklyn: But you're forgetting that he didn't have nearly the same kind of respect for the US government or its power that you do.
posted by bardophile at 11:43 PM on May 3, 2011

Lovecraft in Brooklyn: But you're forgetting that he didn't have nearly the same kind of respect for the US government or its power that you do.

He also probably expected whoever was protecting him to warn him of any attack.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 11:57 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Plus, wasn't it the middle of the night? Were all the rooms in the compound lit?

If I'm a Navy Seal, in a nighttime operation, I'm probably going to be shooting first, asking questions later...
posted by Windopaene at 11:58 PM on May 3, 2011

Here's a question for all the gung-ho types. Let's leave morality to one side for a moment. Don't you think it was stupid to kill someone who was allegedly at the heart of a massive terror network, when you could interrogate him instead?

I'm not gung-ho and I will still answer, "Nope."

He is allegedly not only at the heart, he's the ringmaster. What am I going to get out of him during an interrogation? It's not like he's going to turn over his boss to us; he WAS the boss. He was number one on the Terrorist Most Wanted List of the FBI.

Besides, how much credibility could we give to anything the man had to say? I doubt he would just start answering questions because we asked them. And I don't us want to sink to the level of torture, even if torture was a reliable means of obtaining information, which it isn't.

Plus, we took computers and other equipment from the home. We can get more information from those sources that I feel would be of value to us regarding this terror network than any statements this man would have made. Financial records, for example. I'd like to know about money changing hands, if only to find out how this compound came to be, so close to this Pakistani military academy, without any officials having a clue it was there. Allegedly.
posted by misha at 12:00 AM on May 4, 2011

At the lower end of the spectrum should be the "as the crow flies" distance, which is about 31 miles (I checked in Google Earth):

"(31 miles) north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad" (CNN)

"a mere 31 miles northeast of Islamabad" (The News, Pakistan)

Both the reports have an accurate number, with surrounding text (north, northeast) that hints at what the number represents.

Then we have some lazy neither-here-nor-there numbers (including two different numbers in reports credited to AP):

"(35 miles) north of Islamabad" (Bloomberg)

"less than 35 miles from Islamabad" (AP in DailyNews Los Angeles)

"Abbottabad, a military garrison town 38 miles from the capital Islamabad" (Tehran Times)

"in Abbottabad, about 40 miles from Islamabad" (Chicago Tribune)

"less than 50 miles from the capital Islamabad" (Yorkshire Post)

"some 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad" (AP in Lake County News-Sun)

Why not just say "less than 100,000 miles" and be absolutely sure to be not-wrong?

At the upper end of the spectrum are the driving distances. Google Maps says there are three routes: ~70 miles, ~77 miles and ~88 miles.

"about 75 miles north of Islamabad" (David Ignatius, "a columnist for The Washington Post")

"less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad" (Foreign Policy)

And then there is the "fuck it, we are going with driving time, who can dispute that?":

"Abbottabad, an hour’s drive from the capital Islamabad" (Daily Express, UK)

The point I was trying to make was not that this distance is some critical aspect of the story and that news organizations are guilty of terrible journalism for not having reported the exact same number (though I am fully guilty of not having articulated it clearly).

The clumsily-made point was that there are several ways of interpreting something (a distance between two cities) that many would assume to be easily understandable as a single "fact". Yet, while the media gives itself a broad brief on what it can say about something so simple, so much is being made (in a lot of TV coverage I watched, twitter updates I followed, and right here in this thread) of "inconsistencies" in updates being given on what happened during the mission. It has just completely turned me off the media for now.
posted by vidur at 12:14 AM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

Ironmouth wrote: Joe, this is a guy whose been photographed more times with an AK-47 in his hand than I've been photographed with a beer in my hand. Only an idiot would just walk up to this man and assume he was unarmed after he refused a surrender command. Would you personally do it? And if you wouldn't, why do you ask someone else to do the same. You are asking a person to risk their entire life on this decision. I'd shoot the fuck first.

After your Commander in Chief told you to capture him?! For shame.

But I think we both acknowledge that your President was lying if he said that he gave orders to capture bin Laden, right? He was lying. There was never any prospect of that, no imaginable scenario in which bin Laden could have survived the assassination. Because it wasn't about a military outcome; it was about being the coolest President either, and a live bin Laden would simply have been embarrassing.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:17 AM on May 4, 2011

Last night I watched Raptor, an incredibly low-budget Jurassic Park/Aliens ripoff produced by Roger Corman. It had a SEAL raid with two helicopters (both from different movies, I think). One crashed.
Admittedly, it crashed because a dinosaur somehow snuck into the backseat and stabbed the pilot. But still...
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 12:28 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I had never realized how much more massive our mountains are than anywhere else in the world until I started visiting the "impressive mountains" of various other parts of the world. And this is despite knowing, on paper, that the Himalayas are much higher. It just hadn't registered, until people started telling me that what looked to me like a hill was Mt Rainier, for example.

I know! Minus this whole nonsense, Abbottabad seems like a great place to be; virtuallyreal's (the guy who live-tweeted the entire operation unknowingly) coffee-shop a great way to relax etc.
posted by the cydonian at 12:36 AM on May 4, 2011

bring lots of cash.
posted by clavdivs at 12:45 AM on May 4, 2011

After your Commander in Chief told you to capture him?! For shame.

But I think we both acknowledge that your President was lying if he said that he gave orders to capture bin Laden, right?

I know it's pretty much pointless to argue with you, but you seem really hung up on making sure that Obama = the enemy. Fine. Nothing the US government does will give you the warm fuzzies. But there is no reason, in my opinion, to dis-believe that the orders were to capture if possible, kill if necessary. Your assertion that he definitely didn't die in a firefight, despite the fact that a firefight occurred within the building, is pretty ridiculous. Yes, gunfire was not exchanged within the specific room he was shot in, so it seems, but given that a person in that room seems to have charged the SEALs, and OBL apparently didn't throw his arms up in surrender, I'm not really sure what you expected the SEALs to do.

I'm not a toe-the-line, whatever my government does is awesome/justified/wonderful person, but in this situation I don't see a whole lot to argue with. The preceding torture of detainees, yes, absolutely horrendous and not justified by any measure or (alleged) outcome. But this mission? I can't complain.
posted by JenMarie at 1:02 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Some Mefites are stand-out members, and after his relentless defense of the IDF in so many I/P threads, I would expect Joe to take the precise opposite position that he is taking now.

I mean, it's not as if OBL were a Palestinian child living too close to some tunnel or something!

Genuinely strange. Has Joe had a Road to Damascus conversion when it comes to military violence and extrajudicial assassination? Or does he just expect better from US forces than Israeli forces?
posted by moorooka at 1:06 AM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Joe in Australia (re: the burial at sea): I was actually wondering why the other victims of the assassination weren't disposed of the same way. After all, the tombs of the people who died with OBL could be just as pilgrimage-worthy to followers as OBL's grave itself, if the latter cannot be found.

Then had a flash that it's the most "respectful disrespectful" way of disposing of his corpse. Toeing the line, if you like. A bit like how at the end of the movie Pan's Labyrinth the fascist anti-hero is told that his son won't even learn his name, just before the anti-hero is shot dead. Deny them a grave, but act as if you're doing things properly.

The very fact that the other victims may end up with regular graves in Abbotabad looks then like a bit of a "fuck you" to Bin Laden's kin.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:14 AM on May 4, 2011

Pakistani blog piece well worth reading.

For a start, apologize. Apologize Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, to the world for not keeping your side of the bargain, to your country for letting us be shamed on your watch. Apologize even if it kills you. Because your subsequent loss of face might embolden you enough to hold others accountable. And because somebody or the other is always trying to kill you anyway and you might as well die on the right side of the line.
posted by bardophile at 1:33 AM on May 4, 2011 [9 favorites]

Adam Curtis asks, who will be the baddie now?
posted by bardophile at 2:05 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

bardophile, thank you so much for your insights. The turn in the US-Pakistani relationship is one of the most interesting aspects of this event. Pakistani military have been playing the irrational fears of the US government for decades, not just this last decade. First it was "Sovjet/India/World Communism - BWAWAWA", and then very cleverly it was turned into "Islamism - SCARY". It's scary to know how easily world leaders are scared..
Already during the elections, Obama said he would call Pakistan on this, and he did. So what now? What do you think would happen if the US stopped funding Pakistani military? (Unfortunately, that is not likely yet). Would there be a situation similar to that in North Africa? It seems to me there are even more well-educated young people in Pakistan or living as expats than there are North Africans.
posted by mumimor at 2:11 AM on May 4, 2011

I assume by North Africa, you're referring to Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and the recent events there?
posted by bardophile at 2:18 AM on May 4, 2011

Yes
posted by mumimor at 2:25 AM on May 4, 2011

That blog piece was very good bardophile. The Pakistani government has been spinning like crazy today to deny the fact that it's head does not know what it's hands are doing, and it's difficult to see how they can retain any legitimacy.

I would think Pakistan's moment to fight for a real democracy must come now. I'd be surprised if there weren't uprisings equivalent to Egypt, Syria and the rest. The problem is how to keep their nuclear arsenal in safe hands.
posted by Skygazer at 2:32 AM on May 4, 2011

Well, you have to remember that the subcontinent is a very different beast than North Africa. My sister-in-law and I were discussing this just a couple of weeks ago. There was a time, during Zia-ul-Haq's regime, when information was very closely controlled in Pakistan, but that time is gone. The Arab world has maintained a much tighter hold on telecom than Pakistan has. The example that comes to mind is that recently, someone I know lost a friend in a motor accident in Abu Dhabi. And what she was angriest about was that, because one of the parties in the accident was a crony of the Sheikh's, no one would ever know the truth about what had happened. In Pakistan, everyone would have known the truth an hour later, but the crony would still not be brought to justice. Unsurprisingly, we're a lot more cynical about establishments. The history of marauders coming to the subcontinent, plundering, and leaving (or settling), goes back thousands of years. We don't seriously expect the government to take care of us. It's an extremely wealthy region, natural resource wise, so it's only recently that the endemic corruption is starting to mean that people literally don't have enough to eat. I'm not sure what change that might start. When I moved back to Pakistan in 1999, I started predicting that there was going to be a bloody revolution within 10 years or so. And that's because the gap between rich and poor is disgustingly large, and increasingly visible.

So, I guess my answer is, I don't know. I don't think it will be like North Africa, because the problems are of an entirely different sort. Our rah-rah moment of freedom came in 1947. Our government is a lot more subtle about screwing us over than the Arab dictators have been. And we're too inured to takers. Really, there's something about that psychology that I can't quite explain. The idea that we can force our government to be accountable is not one that really resonates with anyone I know in Pakistan, barring some members of the educated elite. You're right about there being more well-educated Pakistanis and expats from Pakistan, but the thing is, we've lived with the intolerable for an awfully long time. We've gotten incredibly good at it. So I just don't know.
posted by bardophile at 2:40 AM on May 4, 2011 [8 favorites]

Oh also, the sense of noblesse oblige is very much alive and well. The wealthy tend to give a great deal in charity. So, the house servant who is paid a pittance still knows that they will be clothed, taken to the doctor, helped out with funding their children's weddings, etc., etc., etc. I commented just a little upthread about how not giving in charity would be a huge flag to the neighbouring poor.

What this means is that because they get handouts from the people who oppress them, the indignity of servility is more bearable. This reduces the chance of revolution. I think the wealthy are well aware of that connection.

But Skygazer, yes, I agree. This appears to be a time for us to finally truly fight for our country's future.
posted by bardophile at 2:45 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Well, I deliberately wrote North Africa and not the Arab World, because it is obvious for everyone to see that in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states any signs of resentment are put under foot rapidly and brutally. I think at least Egypt and maybe Tunesia might be a lot like how you describe Pakistan.
But right now and here, I was thinking about what would happen if the army lost its huge American funding, and thus a lot of its power. Come to think of it, look at Latin America, when the US stopped supporting the dictators there: some countries have found a way ahead, others are still struggling..
posted by mumimor at 4:22 AM on May 4, 2011

Another perspective from an expat Pakistani.

******
think at least Egypt and maybe Tunesia might be a lot like how you describe Pakistan.
But right now and here, I was thinking about what would happen if the army lost its huge American funding, and thus a lot of its power. Come to think of it, look at Latin America, when the US stopped supporting the dictators there: some countries have found a way ahead, others are still struggling..

Hmm. I don't know enough about Egypt and Tunisia to be able to comment with any authority at all. I've always thought they had more in common with the Arab world than with Pakistan, but honestly, that's really just an ignorant lumping together of places based on relative proximity.

As for your other question, well, whatever I say is just speculation, right? IF the US stopped funding, it's pretty hard to predict what would happen. Initially, an awful lot of hardship. After that, who knows? Personally, I tend to think that Pakistan has a really long, and really hard road ahead, before any substantial progress can be made. For now, we seem to be going backwards, in a lot of respects.
posted by bardophile at 4:35 AM on May 4, 2011

I wonder when President Obama will speak on it next. Anyone know the press conference schedule for toda (for any officials)?
posted by cashman at 5:17 AM on May 4, 2011

His schedule for today is in the right sidebar at Politico 44.

*Oooh he meets the Prince of Wales at 4:30 today! Swanky. Bet they do a little Brit & America love-in over the end of OBL.
posted by Skygazer at 5:22 AM on May 4, 2011

Interesting information, if true: Osama bin Laden's daughter watched special forces shoot him dead

Osama bin Laden’s youngest daughter saw US special forces storm the family’s hideout and shoot her father dead, Pakistani security sources have claimed.... The girl who watched as bin Laden was shot in the head and chest was said to be 12 or 13 years old.... One survivor, possibly one of bin Laden’s sons, was captured by the Americans and taken away with the special forces in a helicopter.

posted by Joe in Australia at 5:39 AM on May 4, 2011

But I think we both acknowledge that your President was lying if he said that he gave orders to capture bin Laden, right? He was lying. There was never any prospect of that, no imaginable scenario in which bin Laden could have survived the assassination. Because it wasn't about a military outcome; it was about being the coolest President either, and a live bin Laden would simply have been embarrassing.

Poor dodge of the question. But I can understand the inconvience of answering the simple question of how a SEAL is supposed to know that bin Laden isn't armed beforehand.

As to your speculations, no, I do not agree with you. None of that is supported by any of the evidence we have at this point. People were so anxious, nay wanted this to be true, that they twisted words to come up with this scenario. I have seen plenty of evidence to the contrary that he was given the opportunity to surrender. He did not.
You never do answer the question head on.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:44 AM on May 4, 2011

Like, say the life of a single Navy SEAL? Because that's what you are asking for.

They could have simply bombed the compound from the air if they'd wanted too. The whole point of a military is that people put their lives on the line to achieve objectives. If we didn't want to kill any soldiers, we just wouldn't have wars at all.

You can't say "You can't do X+Y when X would put our troupes in greater danger" when you've already decided to do Y which also puts our troops in danger.
posted by delmoi at 5:45 AM on May 4, 2011

This is well-stated, Miko.
posted by torticat at 5:47 AM on May 4, 2011

They could have simply bombed the compound from the air if they'd wanted too.

I think the critical difference there is that the choice to use SEALs, rather than bomb, was saying "having definite identification and avoiding the loss of innocent lives is worth risking some of our men's lives over" vs "This man has been ordering the killing of innocents for years, and has refused to surrender, and the chances are that he is going to attack us if he can and no, we don't want to risk our men's lives over that."
posted by bardophile at 5:50 AM on May 4, 2011

Well, how innocent could they be if they are living in the bin laden compound. It's not like they don't know who the guy is. It's not like going after an apartment building where you're going to kill the guys neighbors.

I think the choice to send a team in was due mainly to the desire to get a positive ID for sure. If they're going to go that far, it would have been better if they'd also made an effort to catch him alive.
posted by delmoi at 5:54 AM on May 4, 2011

Here's a question for all the gung-ho types. Let's leave morality to one side for a moment. Don't you think it was stupid to kill someone who was allegedly at the heart of a massive terror network, when you could interrogate him instead?

Capture is preferable, yes. But the circumstances make it a less-probable outcome. He was give Arabic commands to surrender and did not. At that point, you're not gonna go up and grab him. He could be armed with anything and extolled martyrdom in attacks on US interests to billions world-wide. Remember you don't know anyone is unarmed until you search them.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:56 AM on May 4, 2011

You can't say "You can't do X+Y when X would put our troupes in greater danger" when you've already decided to do Y which also puts our troops in danger.

Why not?

Seriously, there's no continum of risk for the SEALs in this operation? Of course there is. Yes, we ask our servicemembers to take risks. But we don't ask them to be kamikazis like bin Laden did. I'm not saying it is 100% the same thing, but these sailors do not know he is unarmed. How could they? They only find out for sure after they search his person.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:03 AM on May 4, 2011

Well, how innocent could they be if they are living in the bin laden compound.

I heard a report yesterday that there were 23 children in the compound. Possibly one of the reasons that bomb or drone strikes were eliminated as options was that even if you announce you killed the Big Bad, that good news kind of gets diminished when you have to add "And, uh, fourteen children were wounded, nine fatally." It's not simply a trade-off about military lives - no one wants to get a high-value asset like a SEAL killed - but child civilian deaths are infinitely worse (in terms of media coverage etc.).
posted by rtha at 6:10 AM on May 4, 2011

Interesting information, if true: Osama bin Laden's daughter watched special forces shoot him dead

What's so interesting about that? Should the troops have just dropped their weapons and apologized when they found out bin Laden was hanging out with kids?

But I think we both acknowledge that your President was lying if he said that he gave orders to capture bin Laden, right?

I know you weren't talking to me, but no, I wouldn't acknowledge that for a second.
posted by inigo2 at 6:10 AM on May 4, 2011

koeselitz: You are left trying to prove that the waterboarding is an essential part of that rapport-building; some of us aren't so sure. Either way, it took a long time to turn him into an asset. So the whole "I'm Jack Bauer, and I must break this terrorist now in order to glean important life-saving information from him!" nonsense doesn't fly. Time is not a factor here. In deciding to torture, one must accept that one will not get any good information within the first two months.

Time Magazine report today, quoting ex-CIA counterterror chief:

While reports suggest that the information KSM provided on the courier came weeks or months after he was subjected to EITs, Rodriguez says al Libbi’s tips came just one week after he was subjected to the harsh treatment.

Former Bush officials say that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques is misunderstood. “The main thing that people misunderstand about the program is it was intended to encourage compliance,” says John McLaughlin, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the period in which waterboarding was used. “It wasn’t set out to torture people. It was never conceived of as a torture program.”

posted by BobbyVan at 6:19 AM on May 4, 2011

To reiterate nile_red's post from yesterday, President Obama will go on 60 minutes Sunday (well the interview is happening today but being shown on Sunday) to do a first and only interview about this. I'm guessing that topic will take up almost all of the program.
posted by cashman at 6:22 AM on May 4, 2011

Sorry everyone, I had to skip some of this thread. (From about noon May 2) I apologize if these questions have been answered.

How did they do a DNA test in such a short time? Was there an autopsy? How bad were his kidneys? Why so fast with the burial? What was the rush? Was there a dialysis machine on site?

Why does everything seem to get done in such a secretive manner these days?
posted by Trochanter at 6:27 AM on May 4, 2011

While reports suggest that the information KSM provided on the courier came weeks or months after he was subjected to EITs, Rodriguez says al Libbi’s tips came just one week after he was subjected to the harsh treatment.

It doesn't say after he was first subjected to the harsh treatment, it says after. He was subjected to the harsh treatment for a month, right?

After the month-long torment, he was never waterboarded again.

So that's 5 weeks, right?
posted by cashman at 6:30 AM on May 4, 2011

Delmoi wrote: Well, how innocent could they be if they are living in the bin laden compound. It's not like they don't know who the guy is.

Some of them were his kids, so I suppose they knew he was their daddy and that he loved them.

I try to be a realist about this sort of thing and recognise that innocents die in wartime, but denying that children are innocent is an act of moral perversity that I refuse to stomach.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:39 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

But I think we both acknowledge that your President was lying if he said that he gave orders to capture bin Laden, right?

What if the orders were, take him if he surrenders; otherwise shoot; do not put in jeopardy your own lives or the lives of civilians around the target.

Would that mean the President lied?

Also,
"yay! we get to kill the guy that dissed us!"

dissed us?
posted by torticat at 6:40 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

moorooka: Some Mefites are stand-out members, and after his relentless defense of the IDF in so many I/P threads, I would expect Joe to take the precise opposite position that he is taking now.

Any chance we could please not go there? We've had a mostly civil discussion throughout this extensive thread and it would be a shame to turn it into yet another I/P flamewar, or a referendum on one Mefite's position on that topic.
posted by zarq at 6:41 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

We've had a mostly civil discussion throughout this extensive thread

Honesty is a prerequisite for a meaningful discussion. Israel had a known assassination policy targeting high-level members of organizations considered threats to the state. I don't see how someone in good faith can say that's ok but this is not, which is what Joe appears to be doing.
posted by me & my monkey at 6:49 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I dunno, I think moorooka raises an interesting point that it would be equally interesting to hear Joe in Australia's reply to. He has been fairly hardline in the past in defending similarly violent episodes when they've been organized by the Israeli government.
posted by mediareport at 6:50 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The problem with any Rules Of Engagement of "offer surrender and open fire if not forthcoming" is that up to a certain point in recent history the "surrender" option wouldn't necessarily have lead to torture and being kept in Guantanamo Bay or a similar site. The Bush doctrine of "Enemy Combatants" and torture pretty much fucked it for anyone wishing to capture someone alive as a result.
posted by longbaugh at 6:51 AM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

So that's 5 weeks, right?

I think you're confusing Al-Libbi and KSM. I haven't been able to determine (yet) how long Al-Libbi's "enhanced" interrogation lasted.
posted by BobbyVan at 6:54 AM on May 4, 2011

Mediareport: I haven't actually objected to the violence. I've objected to the assassination of someone who could have been arrested; I've objected to the hypocritical way that the US administration has avoided calling it an assassination; I've objected to the lies that were told, and the lies that I strongly suspect are still being told. But the violence? No; violence is an inherent part of warfare. If we didn't have violence then we couldn't have wars, and then where would we be?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:03 AM on May 4, 2011

me & my monkey and mediareport, I'm just hoping to avoid an all-out flamewar derail, that's all. This discussion has been informative and interesting. Would really hate to see it devolve.

Am not trying to silence anyone, of course. Just asking for civility.
posted by zarq at 7:07 AM on May 4, 2011

The problem with any Rules Of Engagement of "offer surrender and open fire if not forthcoming" is that up to a certain point in recent history the "surrender" option wouldn't necessarily have lead to torture and being kept in Guantanamo Bay or a similar site.

Fair point, but not really pertinent to joe in australia's criticism, is it? Obama had to deal with the facts as they are. It's not like the SEALs could demand surrender and pinky-promise OBL wouldn't be tortured if he agreed.
posted by torticat at 7:09 AM on May 4, 2011

Or does he just expect better from US forces than Israeli forces?

How many OBL children were killed?

Now, what's the comparable high value target with a number of Palestinian kids around him/her? What was the child death toll?

Extra points if you get SEAL video of rock throwing or small child running up and hitting the SEAL with little angry fists and the reaction is to analyze the situation and not shoot the small child. (I believe the SEAL team gets points for the reported leg shot of a wife rushing 'em)

In either case, its funding with American tax dollars. For the larger spending, one would hope to get a better quality product no?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:16 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Joe: as a fellow Australian, I applaud you for objecting to the assassination. As we all know, Australia objects to the death penalty, especially in the sense of extrajudicial political assassinations.

I, in fact, have a letter from the then head of the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade's Middle Eastern unit. I had queried why Australia refused to condemn Israel for the assassination of the wheelchair Sheikh (the "spiritual head" of Hamas), given that we oppose the death penalty.

(Australia & the US were the only countries in the world to oppose that UN resolution condemning Israel, other than maybe Kiribati & maybe one or two other tinpot aid-dependent Pacific islands)

The DFAT head's explanation was that the resolution "unfairly targeted Israel". Fair enough; a nation that carries out extrajudicial political assassinations is "unfairly targeted" when condemned for carrying out extrajudicial political assassinations. It must have been the penguins or something that flew those helicopters & launched those missiles.

Given this precedent, I would suggest that for consistency you should discontinue this unfair targeting of America.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:24 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

delmoi writes "Well, how innocent could they be if they are living in the bin laden compound. It's not like they don't know who the guy is. It's not like going after an apartment building where you're going to kill the guys neighbors. "

Trochanter writes "How did they do a DNA test in such a short time? Was there an autopsy? How bad were his kidneys? Why so fast with the burial? What was the rush? Was there a dialysis machine on site?

"Why does everything seem to get done in such a secretive manner these days?"

Cause of death was pretty obvious so I'm not sure why an autopsy would be performed. And there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to release medical information even if it is known.
posted by Mitheral at 7:30 AM on May 4, 2011

I've objected to the lies that were told...

What lies were those? Apologies if I missed in the thread, a link to comment would be cool.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:30 AM on May 4, 2011

Why so fast with the burial?

Muslim tradition, like Jewish tradition, requires burial within 24 hours of death.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:34 AM on May 4, 2011

So, I've heard claims that evidence suggests Bin Laden may have been holed-up comfortably in this compound in Pakistan for 5--6 years now.

Does that mean Bin Laden's been under implicit/explicit Pakistani military protection since way back when Pervez Musharraf was still our boy in Pakistan--back when the Bush admin was personally paying the guy billions every year in direct cash payments? Pervy didn't resign until 2008, so that time frame would square with Bin Laden settling in for his long winter's nap on Musharraf's watch.

And there were rumors swirling constantly that Musharraf had made a secret deal to give safe haven to Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, as I recall, even while on the US dole.

(Is that the Republican ideal for how US government should function: give any amount of unqualified financial aid in direct payments to those who seem most readily willing to betray us for their own selfish gain (whether investment bankers or foreign military strongman), but none to Americans who may actually need it?). Seems like it to me sometimes.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:36 AM on May 4, 2011

do not know he is unarmed

Needs to be repeated for truth.

Look. I get it. Wanting to take the high road or wanting to leverage an opportunity for interrogation. Noted. I'm with you. You could definitely peg me on the "peace and love and human rights" end of the spectrum in my worldview and my politics.

However.

I can imagine that it would have been impossible to determine that he was unarmed AFTER they were able to search him. Which was after he was shot. Even I, assuming that there is some weird universe where someone would give me a weapon and send me into a mission like this, would have more likely than not shot Bin Laden in this instance.

1) I land with my colleagues in the compound,
2) I'm shot at by bodyguards and have to return fire,
3) I reach the room where OBL is hiding.

At this point, there are a number of things that could happen. What would have to happen for me to absolutely believe that OBL is not armed, not hiding weapons on his person, and not in reach of a detonator that would blow us all up?

He would have to be naked with his hands in the air in a brightly lit room and standing stock still while shouting "I am unarmed!" And even then? I'd have doubts. But it could have happened. And yet, by the accounts we have thus far, it didn't happen. But on the outside chance it did? Awesome, here are the handcuffs, let's go before the Pakastani military shows up and we have to engage them. And, oh yes, the military is geographically close and heard those helicopters already. Engaging Pakistani soldiers ratchets this whole thing up to war with Pakistan territory and THAT would end in way more deaths than OBL.

It's always easier in hindsight to say, "Oh, unarmed? Maybe you shouldn't have shot him." But unless the military has developed time travel capabilities or is able to read minds now or predict the future, well, let's just say I understand it. And I'm not ever someone who is all "rah, rah, let's kill, go USA!" But I am someone who thinks that the war in Iraq is a ridiculous waste and I'm not sad to have the light re-shone on the question of "what the hell are we doing there??!" since the push to send troops over to the Mideast at all after 9/11 was buoyed on the anger about 9/11, AQ and OBL. GWB's administration played Congress and OBL being at large was their cover on Iraq. Cover is gone. Inspirational leader and sugar daddy of AQ is gone. Two birds.
posted by jeanmari at 7:37 AM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Like, say the life of a single Navy SEAL? Because that's what you are asking for.
posted by Ironmouth

So getting a(n unarmed*) man into court to stand trial isn't worth risking a life eh?

*Some reporting has him unarmed.

My point is that the SEALs don't know he's unarmed. Nobody wants to some how deal with this point. If, as reported, he was given a surrender command in Arabic as has been reported, and he refused to, what's next? You just walk up and say "please?"

What's the guy doing, wearing transparent clothes? I mean, come on, you're placing later ascertained facts in the heads of the persons involved in the operation to create your scenario. Would love some of the people claming this is an assasination to explain this.

This is totally unlike the targeted political assasinations by Israel discussed upthread. No chance to surrender is offered.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:42 AM on May 4, 2011

Also, he was not wanted in the US for his politics. He was an indicted alleged felon for 13 years, led a conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center, led a conspiracy to bomb multiple US Embassies in Africa, and then led a conspiracy to fly aircraft into the World Trade Center bulidings, and multiple government buildings in Washington, DC, leading directly to the deaths of 3,000.

Also that shit about loving his kids? Ok, but he sure deliberately set out to kill the kids of others. You can say what you want about the US military's calculus on collateral damage, but if they could just beam their enemies into a prison cell without blowing anyone else up, they would. This guy aimed for innocents.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:51 AM on May 4, 2011

Muslim tradition, like Jewish tradition, requires burial within 24 hours of death.

I mentioned this upthread, but it's preferable, not required.
posted by zarq at 7:51 AM on May 4, 2011

President Obama is going to NYC tomorrow (Thursday), to the WTC site. (forgive me if this has been posted but I've read almost every comment and didn't see it mentioned, even though it is two days old news.)
posted by cashman at 8:05 AM on May 4, 2011

Given his past statements re: israel and palestine, i have to believe that Joe in Australia is engaged in some kind of elaborate troll.
posted by empath at 8:14 AM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Fair point, but not really pertinent to joe in australia's criticism, is it? Obama had to deal with the facts as they are. It's not like the SEALs could demand surrender and pinky-promise OBL wouldn't be tortured if he agreed.

Not sure of what you are getting at, could go either way--i mean the idea is that he asks for surrender first, if not, you fire.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:14 AM on May 4, 2011

Cause of death was pretty obvious so I'm not sure why an autopsy would be performed. And there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to release medical information even if it is known.

1)Don't we want to know all we can know about this? Was he in such a state of health that he would have needed to have been spirited into a fairly modern hospital facility every few days for ten years?

2)Shouldn't we be the sort of society where the default course of action would be to release information unless there was a compelling reason NOT to?
posted by Trochanter at 8:15 AM on May 4, 2011

Time magazine talked to the kids who were with Bush on 9/11. They're all grown up now! Graduating high school and going to college! I am OLD!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:16 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Given his past statements re: israel and palestine, i have to believe that Joe in Australia is engaged in some kind of elaborate troll.

Like the rest of us, he's entitled to be inconsistent. We're human.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:18 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am now imagining the confrontation of Osama as a scene from a Bioware RPG. SEAL team fights room to room through compound, comes across a conspicuously large set of doors, heals and quicksaves, then heads on in.

Pitched battle with Osama's personal guards, and then...everybody just stops fighting and glares at each other. Conversation prompts come up; SEAL and Osama go back and forth, with the apparent clarity of the SEAL mission being thrown into moral doubt or what have you as Osama discusses his motivations, establishes himself as an at least notionally sympathetic and morally ambiguous character, and hints at backfiring consequences of his death.

Conversation builds to a peak, as the player idly chews on the balance of stated mission vs. bargaining, violence vs. persuasion, choosing his dialogue with care after mulling pauses. Blue option or Red option? "This is your last chance to resolve this peacefully, Bin Ladin. Surrender." vs. "Fine, if that's how you want it. (attack)".

And then everything unpauses and there's another fight, and then there's loot and you hope your rogue is skilled up enough in lockpick to get into the chest.

I have a feeling it doesn't really play out that way in reality most of the time, though. Especially with the lack of quicksaving.
posted by cortex at 8:22 AM on May 4, 2011 [14 favorites]

Given his past statements re: israel and palestine, i have to believe that Joe in Australia is engaged in some kind of elaborate troll.

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder.

I am now imagining the confrontation of Osama as a scene from a Bioware RPG.

Are there currently any games about hunting Al Qaeda or Bin Laden?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:25 AM on May 4, 2011

Like the rest of us, he's entitled to be inconsistent. We're human.

Speak for yourself. I'm a cyborg.
posted by grubi at 8:25 AM on May 4, 2011

I've objected to the assassination of someone who could have been arrested

How can you complain about the inconsistencies of information coming out about the raid, but also say conclusively that he "could have been arrested"?
posted by inigo2 at 8:25 AM on May 4, 2011

BECAUSE IT'S THE INTERNET
posted by unSane at 8:32 AM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

2)Shouldn't we be the sort of society where the default course of action would be to release information unless there was a compelling reason NOT to?

I imagine that national security top secret stuff is pretty compelling, at least for the moment. While I'm not all "keep everything secret forever," I also don't think it's realistic - or a sign that The Cabal is at work - to expect that every detail of this operation will be released to the public, and that doing otherwise is always automatically a bad thing. I imagine there's a lot of stuff that the government doesn't want AQ to know that we know. I also imagine it's going to take some time to sort out what information is releasable and what isn't.
posted by rtha at 8:37 AM on May 4, 2011

All the armchair quarterbacks in this thread and elsewhere have managed to do so far is make Obama look good by comparison. Carry on!
posted by unSane at 8:39 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't believe that there is an international law against assassinations. Can you identify one?

I can't see that this is less - or more - moral than shooting people on a battlefield.

the people who committed the 9/11 atrocities were criminals, not military combatants. All those associated should have been pursued like criminals, tried and punished according to the letter of US and international law.

How do you think this might have been done? Would a letter to the Taliban have been appropriate, asking for the extradition of Osama bin Laden?

Yes: far fewer people die as the result of a targeted assassination. I suspect that assassinations aren't as effective as the people who call for them may think, but I can't see a moral difference between killing someone via a sniper's bullet and killing them via some shrapnel. If assassinations were effective I'd be all for assassinating the leaders of the bad guys rather than killing a bunch of conscripts.

So it seems to me that this assassination would be legally justifiable whether Anwar al-Awlaki is a combatant or a criminal. I think it's also ethically justifiable, even for non-Utilitarians. The alternative is either to say that the USA has no right to stop Anwar al-Awlaki planning and encouraging acts of murder, or that its right to do so is contingent on its ability to kidnap someone from the middle of a hostile territory without killing his defenders.Neither of these is a reasonable position to hold.
posted by empath at 8:40 AM on May 4, 2011

President Obama is going to NYC tomorrow

George Bush Declines Obama Invitation To Ground Zero.
posted by ericb at 8:40 AM on May 4, 2011

CIA Chief Explains Why Bin Laden Was Shot... Even While Unarmed.
posted by ericb at 8:43 AM on May 4, 2011

They're all grown up now! Graduating high school and going to college! I am OLD!

Sixteen is the new six.
posted by thirteenkiller at 8:45 AM on May 4, 2011

one of the two Black Hawk helicopters lowered into the compound and, beneath a moonless sky, fell heavily to the ground. Officials believe that was due to higher-than-expected air temperature that interfered with the chopper's ability to hover – an aeronautical condition known as "hot and high."

Special silent-mode hovering? I can't imagine that under normal conditions "hot and high" causes choppers to just fall down.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:51 AM on May 4, 2011

Those computers they took from his house were a pretty big deal, and I bet it's easier to get info from them than from OBL himself.

<dick_cheney>Huh? Computers don't care if you waterboard them.</dick_cheney>
posted by Flunkie at 8:53 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Apparently it does
posted by empath at 8:54 AM on May 4, 2011

Steve Coll's take in New Yorker is interesting:

Pakistan’s military and intelligence service takes risks that others would not dare take because Pakistan’s generals believe that their nuclear deterrent keeps them safe from regime change of the sort under way in Libya, and because they have discovered over the years that the rest of the world sees them as too big to fail. Unfortunately, they probably are correct in their analysis; some countries, like some investment banks, do pose systemic risks so great that they are too big to fail, and Pakistan is currently the A.I.G. of nation-states.

Here are a handful of my observations:

* Al Qaida is a very small and diffuse network with a star topology. It's now in the position of withering away as the most probable outcome.

* The intelligence harvest has not generated any immediate targets for action. This is mostly due to AQ's diffuse nature.

* We are heading towards a historic realignment in our relationship with Pakistan. It won't be sudden or jarring, but Pakistan's trajectory is likely going to mirror that of other Muslim authoritarian states. They are on the losing end of history; a failed attempt at transition into the international community.

* This being the case, it would be very valuable to conduct a reevaluation of the role of the US and particularly the Reagan administration in granting Pakistan the means to create their nuclear program. Since the political cost of such a reevaluation pretty much bars it from happening, the lingering after effect of this policy disaster will continue to be an anchor of US foreign policy for the foreseeable future.

* Getting out of Afghanistan will be contingent on defining a new relationship with Pakistan. This will take a long time.

* A sign of how well or badly things are going will be how fast the concept of a "global war on terror" (GWOT) as a replacement justification for a permanent wartime command economy (like the Cold War was) fades as a policy priority. There will be strenuous efforts from the national security establishment to resist this trend.

* The intransigence of Congress over the attempted closure of Guantanamo was an influence on not trying too hard to take Bin Laden alive. He would have been a political football for the infantile, so the adults had little incentive to preserve him.
posted by warbaby at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

Reading this article again (NY Times, July 2009, "C.I.A. Had Plan to Assassinate Qaeda Leaders ") is fascinating. It seems that Panetta shut down the program (correctly, in my view, as Congress was not properly informed by the Bush Admin), and then restarted the program.

Also interesting to see how this dovetails with the outrage over Seymour Hersh's allegations of an "assassination ring" run out of the Joint Special Operations Command (which oversaw the SEAL operation to kill OBL).
posted by BobbyVan at 9:17 AM on May 4, 2011

The intransigence of Congress over the attempted closure of Guantanamo was an influence on not trying too hard to take Bin Laden alive. He would have been a political football for the infantile, so the adults had little incentive to preserve him.

I don't know enough to agree or disagree with the rest of warbaby's post, but I certainly agree with this point.
posted by marsha56 at 9:22 AM on May 4, 2011

And from CIA Director Panetta's interview on the PBS Newshour last night:

JIM LEHRER: Now, there were a lot of rehearsals. These SEAL teams -- this SEAL team went through several rehearsals before doing this, right?

LEON PANETTA: Yes. You know, Jim, I think the thing that gave me a degree of confidence for all the risks and uncertainties that were involved in this mission, the thing that gave me the greatest sense of confidence was the fact that these teams conduct these kinds of operations two and three times a night in Afghanistan. They've got tremendous experience with how to do this and do it well. And so, you know, they moved in on the same basis moving against this compound that they do almost every night in Afghanistan. And I think that gave us all some sense of confidence that they knew exactly what they had to do and what problems they would face in the mission.

posted by BobbyVan at 9:30 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Geronimo Again? The Indian Wars Continue Ad Nauseam

Congress to Examine "Inappropriate" and "Devastating" Use of "Geronimo" Codename in bin Laden Mission
posted by homunculus at 9:31 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Don't we want to know all we can know about this?"

No. Not really. That sounds morbid.

He, at the very least, took credit for the murder of women, children, and innocents. He celebrated it and promised, over and over, to do it again, all over the world. We all wondered why the hell he hadn't been killed, now he has been. It's over and all the talk about how it might be better if he was still alive seems weird to me.

Scumbag is dead. It's done.

No, I don't need to know more about how this celebrater of mass murder died. And no, it wouldn't be better if he was still alive.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:31 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

me & my monkey: There is a clear operational benefit to having him dead rather than free to operate. If the opportunity had existed to just drop a giant bomb on him without causing deaths of innocents, etc, that would have been perfectly justifiable.

It is also a clear operational benefit for al Qaeda to assassinate Obama. Is that acceptable? I get increasingly disturbed by the idea that the only limitation to our violence is our ability to get away with it.

If we're just killing people we don't like without a trial, there is no reason to defend our side other than the fact that it's our side.
posted by notion at 9:33 AM on May 4, 2011

Congress to Examine "Inappropriate" and "Devastating" Use of "Geronimo" Codename in bin Laden Mission

*cough*
posted by Sys Rq at 9:38 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

In a war people are killed without trial. That's why it's called a war.

Even if you don't accept that this was a war footing (despite OBL having explicitly declared war), lethal force is used all the time against people who don't surrender to law enforcement.
posted by unSane at 9:38 AM on May 4, 2011

It won't be sudden or jarring, but Pakistan's trajectory is likely going to mirror that of other Muslim authoritarian states. They are on the losing end of history; a failed attempt at transition into the international community.

I'm curious what you base this hypothesis on.

Bardophile, I'd like to thank you for your tremendous insights into your country. You've added so much to this thread. This is what makes MeFi so great.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:40 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

It is also a clear operational benefit for al Qaeda to assassinate Obama. Is that acceptable?

Well no, 'cause Obama's on our side. If can't see a difference between Obama and Bin Laden, I don't know what to say to you.

I get increasingly disturbed by the idea that the only limitation to our violence is our ability to get away with it.

Right and wrong aren't always black and white, with clear cut lines. They can't be, because as soon as you set up one rule for yourself (we will never enter Pakistan without their full knowledge and consent), you've given the enemy a way out. That's foolish.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:42 AM on May 4, 2011

cortex: I am now imagining the confrontation of Osama as a scene from a Bioware RPG. SEAL team fights room to room through compound, comes across a conspicuously large set of doors, heals and quicksaves, then heads on in.

Pitched battle with Osama's personal guards, and then...everybody just stops fighting and glares at each other. Conversation prompts come up; SEAL and Osama go back and forth, with the apparent clarity of the SEAL mission being thrown into moral doubt or what have you as Osama discusses his motivations, establishes himself as an at least notionally sympathetic and morally ambiguous character, and hints at backfiring consequences of his death.

Well... the criminally underrated (albeit horribly flawed) Obsidan RPG Alpha Protocol gives you the option fairly early on of

SPOILERS

either assassinating or sparing the life of a thinly-veiled Osama Bin Laden analog, the leader of "Al-Samad". Depending on your decisions throughout the game, it's possible to end up siding with him against the shadowy US government agency you start out working for. I was surprised that so few people objected to this, before realising that very few people had bought, played or finished Alpha Protocol.
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:42 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Congress to Examine "Inappropriate" and "Devastating" Use of "Geronimo" Codename in bin Laden Mission

"The Obama administration has indicated that the Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden did not use “Geronimo” as the codename for him, but rather it was the code for the act of capturing or killing him."
posted by cashman at 9:44 AM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Heh, you know, a while back, when we were discussing Anwar al-Awlaki, who's basically the Yemeni version of Bin Laden, a lot of people pointed out that nobody would cry about Bin Laden being hunted down. I guess we were wrong about that.
posted by Artw at 9:44 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

homunculus: "Congress to Examine "Inappropriate" and "Devastating" Use of "Geronimo" Codename in bin Laden Mission"

I was under the impression that these sort of operations were named totally randomly from a set of words, so as to avoid tipping others off as to their nature. Is this not the case?
posted by brundlefly at 9:46 AM on May 4, 2011

It was a Doctor Who reference!
posted by Artw at 9:48 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I was under the impression that these sort of operations were named totally randomly from a set of words, so as to avoid tipping others off as to their nature."

The first three words are the important ones - "Congress to examine". This is the tip off that the whole this is pointless and not worth bothering over.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:49 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Like healthcare, this is going to end in Republicans deciding that it was all so terribly bad that they need recover Bin Laden from the ocean floor and reanimate him.
posted by Artw at 9:55 AM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

for the love of fuck.... "Congress" pitching a fit about this is kind of like the domestic abuser working the crisis hot-line.

I can understand why certain members of the Native American community might object to it, sort of like the inane naming of wasicu si cu sports teams after tribes and skin color, but Congress? Yeah, those spotty asseed bastards should just go fuck off already
posted by edgeways at 9:58 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Dalai Lama speaks out in support of Bin Laden's killing.

As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures."

posted by BobbyVan at 10:03 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hence violence, while never solving anything, is also the only non-suicidal choice? Hmm. That's definitely a cognitive dissonance, but all joking aside, I would have to say that I agree with that, if it is, indeed, your position. Violence is a poor choice, and often leads to a continuing cycle of violence. It's also sometimes pretty much the only sane choice. A bitter aspect to life as we know it, but maybe unavoidable barring evolutionary-level change.

That's pretty much what I've been saying, but probably not as clearly as I should have. In my defense we got to this point rather obliquely.

How is that logical, especially with the vague qualifiers in there (some, can)? Are you aware of some other life form that has decided or evolved to become non-violent?

I guess it depends on whether you accept the MWI of quantum mechanics. Since I accept the MWI as the correct interpretation then for me it is entirely logical that humans will develop a non violent society. So I guess I would concede that it is not a logical conclusion based on a one universe world view.

But acting like it could happen within a few decades is ridiculous.

I don't think that I have suggested a time frame.

And I don't think supernovas have to be considered violent.

That's true they don't have to be considered violent, but in the context of human life they are one of the most violent events imaginable. I am also not anthropomorphizing stars. Mind can exist independent of consciousness and agency. Stars are the foundational entity for biological life and are therefore intertwined with biological life forms in a cybernetic system. This phenomena was first described by John von Neumann(he was actually describing quantum systems and it wasn't until later that the applications to cybernetics became clear) and elaborated upon by Norbert Weiner and Gregory Bateson among others.

146BC Carthage.

The Anasazi.

Tasmanian Aborigines.

The Bo

All of which led to more violence. The Punic wars surely solved the problems Rome had with Carthage, but it was the beginning of Roman expansion outside of the Italian peninsula. Rome went on to use violence again and again until it's ultimate collapse. The violence done to indigenous peoples, again, surely solved the question of who would control the land, but has led to again more violence. One example of this is the American system of reservations which have some of the lowest standards of living and high levels of violence. I guess I overstated when I claimed that violence never solves anything. Sure it solves singular situations, but the aftermath of these "solutions" always leads to some other form of violence. Whether that be on the large state scale or on the smaller interpersonal scale. Many studies have shown time and time again that exposure to violence at a young age will often lead to a violent adult.

Ok, I'm willing to concede that the word "solved" here is going to be a sticking point because I can nearly guarantee that we aren't going to agree on it's definition, but death and violence most certainly "solved" the problem of early settlers who wanted to live on the North American continent and didn't want to deal with those pesky folk already living here.

Except that, as I said above, while the immediate problems were "solved" the solutions inevitably led to more violence being committed. Reservations aren't exactly the most non violent places in the U.S. The situation we currently find on Native American reservations can be traced back to the Indian wars and government policy instituted after we had "solved" the "Indian problem".

So your premise is flawed because it ignores the fact that violence has led to where we are today, which may, on balance, be a less violent world.

Except that we don't live in a less violent world. The 20th century was the most violent century in recorded human history. The 21st century has not gotten off to a good start either. Granted a small segment of the population enjoys access to living in non violent cultures, but for the majority of humans this is simply not the case. I agree that violence has gotten us to where we are today, and that it has given us the opportunity to build the civilization that we have. So in that respect violence has been a good thing in so far that it has allowed us the space to create a non violent society. Which we must do if we are to survive as a species.

As far as the mechanism that allows violence to propagate throughout history and human culture I suggest you read up on cybernetics and closed feedback loops. I don't want this to lead to a bigger derail then it already has so I hope that I at least answered some of your problems with my assertions. If you want to actually learn a bit about the cybernetic view of culture I suggest starting with Gregory Bateson's book Steps to an Ecology of Mind. It won't directly address what I've asserted here, but it will give you a foundation to at least begin to understand where I'm coming from. I would think that mefites would like it as second order cybernetics was one of the original metas.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:07 AM on May 4, 2011

I'm impressed that even the Dalai Lama was relatively OK with this.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:07 AM on May 4, 2011

Meh. The Dalai Lama sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it too. "Yes, I forgive him, but that doesn't mean don't shoot him."
posted by Flunkie at 10:10 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ben Smith notes that Pres. Obama described bin Laden's killing thusly: "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body", and referred to "an operation that resulted in the capture and death of Osama bin Laden."

Bin Laden's 12 year old daughter says that bin Laden was killed while in custody.

The CIA denies this.

Apologies if this is old news.
posted by Eyebeams at 10:12 AM on May 4, 2011

I interpreted the Dalai Lama's comment more like he doesn't think the whole thing is worth such heated rhetoric, like the rest of the world seems to want to do. Like he maintains his personal opinion on non-violence and forgiveness, but "you do what you feel is the right thing to do. It's not my place to judge."

Also, I thought it was telling that to him, mosquitoes aren't a threat unless they're carrying malaria. That's when he would "take counter-measures." My take is that there's a limit to extending compassion when it means putting yourself at risk.
posted by CancerMan at 10:17 AM on May 4, 2011

How The Rest of the World Views America: 'Osama's dead, baby. Osama's dead.'
posted by ericb at 10:18 AM on May 4, 2011

It won't be sudden or jarring, but Pakistan's trajectory is likely going to mirror that of other Muslim authoritarian states. They are on the losing end of history; a failed attempt at transition into the international community.

This is based on the history of Pakistan's international relations, human rights records, and international trade. They aren't quite up there with Burma, North Korea, Syria and Libya, but they have been reportedly involved in creating an international black market to arm these regimes with nuclear weapons.

Authoritarian military regimes that rely on terrorist groups to fight proxy wars with their neighbors (Afghanistan and India) aren't likely to be getting a lot of international support in the future.

Pakistan also has a record of international criminal operations being de facto instruments of state policy: BCCI and AQ Khan being two leading examples.

My guess is that future history will group Pakistan with their nuclear arms trading partners mentioned above.

Reagan wrote Pakistan a get-out-of-jail-free card and I think it's about time that's revoked.
posted by warbaby at 10:19 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bin Laden's 12 year old daughter says that bin Laden was killed while in custody.

The Pakistani authorities, whoever they are, say that she said that.
posted by unSane at 10:19 AM on May 4, 2011

The Pakistani authorities, whoever they are, say that she said that.

Yep:

"The daughter has claimed that she watched as her father was captured alive and shot before being dragged to a US military helicopter, Arabic news network al-Arabiya quoted Pakistani officials as saying."
posted by cashman at 10:21 AM on May 4, 2011

In a war people are killed without trial. That's why it's called a war.

If it's a war, then the United States should be arresting hundreds of people in the Bush Administration for abusing POWs in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. If the Law matters to anyone, which apparently it does not.

Well no, 'cause Obama's on our side. If can't see a difference between Obama and Bin Laden, I don't know what to say to you.

Okay, I'll actually take you up on this offer. Tell me which organization this is:

1) Practices torture as a way to punish and extract information from detainees.
2) Accepts civilian casualties during the course of military objectives.
3) Accepts civilian casualties in their pursuit to force other cultures to adhere to their own set of values.
4) Accepts assassinations without due process of Law as legitimate.

Even if you look at women's rights, which are obviously quite different within the borders, what is the effect of our policy in Iraq? Before the invasion, women were doctors, scientists, teachers, and they were protected from honor killings because Saddam tortured perpetrators of honor killings (and I still don't support torture). Now they live in sewage, millions have been forced from their homes, and after their sons and husbands have been disappeared by US or Iraqi forces backed by the US, many have had to turn to prostitution in order to feed their families. Tell me, were women better off under Saddam or under our occupation?

I suspect you don't know what to say to me because you cannot explain the difference in the effective foreign policies of Obama and Osama. Sure, there's a lot of talk, but talk is meaningless. I'll agree that the intent of Obama and Osama are radically different, but they both believe they are doing the right thing, and consistently accept the premise of the ends justifying the means.

The fact remains that when it comes to raw body count and mayhem, we have delivered thousands of September 11ths. Thousands.
posted by notion at 10:21 AM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Apparently Bin Laden had 500 euros and two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing. One of them was for Pizza Hut.

Anyone want to take bets on which ad agency is gonna run with that one?
posted by Aquaman at 10:22 AM on May 4, 2011

Pakistan is not far off being an ungovernable country, with large bits of it enjoying almost complete autonomy, a huge split between radical and non-radical moslems, the whole thing basically held together by the military, which is fairly radical itself at the top. Anyone expecting it to be a replay of Egypt or Tunisia is likely to be massively disappointed. Bloodbath doesn't begin to describe what's likely to happen, especially if India starts getting involved.
posted by unSane at 10:23 AM on May 4, 2011

(The Pizza Hut part is a joke, actually.)
posted by Aquaman at 10:23 AM on May 4, 2011

My take is that there's a limit to extending compassion when it means putting yourself at risk.

Sure, but I have no problem with the idea that "there are limits to when it is appropriate to extend forgiveness". I also have no problem with the idea that "there are no limits to when it is appropriate to extend forgiveness".

What I have a problem with is the simultaneous claim that (A) there are no limits to extending forgiveness and (B) shoot him.

That's bullshit. That right there is a limit to extending forgiveness; even your own interpretation of it is based upon that fact.
posted by Flunkie at 10:24 AM on May 4, 2011

I was under the impression that these sort of operations were named totally randomly from a set of words, so as to avoid tipping others off as to their nature

The actual name of the operation was Neptune Spear. Geronimo was just a code word invented at an unknown level for communicating the status of the ObL objective.

says that bin Laden was killed while in custody.

That's a pretty generous reading of the short phrase "captured and shot". Something that really doesn't make any sense; why would you do that? The first part involves unjustified danger to your own personnel if you're just going to do the second part anyway. It doesn't claify the meaning of "captured" in any objective way: standing hands in the air? zip-tied? on the floor with a knee in the back?

The Dalai Lama speaks out in support of Bin Laden's killing.

That's another weird way to describe his phrasing, but well in tune with your tendentious contributions to this thread thus far. Buddhism is essentially pacifistic, but then so is Christianity, and both types of cultures have found justification for acts of war.
posted by dhartung at 10:26 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

notion, I don't know if you're being deliberately obtuse, but Bin Laden deliberately targeted civilians. Not just Americans, but moslems too. If that makes no difference to you, okay then, but in law mens rea is kind of a big thing.
posted by unSane at 10:27 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

When we're talking about thousands of civilian deaths versus hundreds of thousands, I don't think I'm the one being obtuse. So, we made up some legal excuse for our behavior. That doesn't mean shit.
posted by notion at 10:31 AM on May 4, 2011

The Dalai Lama speaks out in support of Bin Laden's killing.

That's another weird way to describe his phrasing, but well in tune with your tendentious contributions to this thread thus far. Buddhism is essentially pacifistic, but then so is Christianity, and both types of cultures have found justification for acts of war.

I think his holiness is discussing karma more than anything. Not in the "he got what was coming to him" way, but more in the sense that every action moves other things in reaction to them. Bin Laden's actions did move other actors to move towards him.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:32 AM on May 4, 2011

BobbyVan: "The Dalai Lama speaks out in support of Bin Laden's killing.

As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures."
"

The Dalai Lama's been in the CIA pocket for years, of course he'd say shit like this.
posted by symbioid at 10:33 AM on May 4, 2011

More about the difficulties and probabilities re OBL's DNA test:The agency responsible for conducting the analysis is also unconfirmed: media reports have named both FBI and the CIA. Several sources suggested that DNA was subpoenaed from the body of a half-sister of bin Laden, when she reportedly died at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, but the hospital was unable to confirm the report. "There is no evidence she was even here," says spokesperson Sue McGreevey.

@ReallyVirtual FAQ

Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, a 1977 UT journalism alumnus, commands the unit that planned and executed the raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden on Sunday.
posted by nickyskye at 10:33 AM on May 4, 2011

The Dalai Lama's been in the CIA pocket for years, of course he'd say shit like this.

I'm not a Gelug, but that is ridiculous.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:34 AM on May 4, 2011

This just in: President will not release photos of bin Laden's body.
posted by ericb at 10:36 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Really?

In October 1998, the Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the U.S. government through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and also trained a resistance movement in Colorado (USA).[82]

(footnote 82 leads to NYT)

(now, my "of course he said it" was a joke. I don't think he said it because the CIA paid him. But he WAS on the payroll.)

posted by symbioid at 10:38 AM on May 4, 2011

This just in: President will not release photos of bin Laden's body.

I just saw that as well - apparently he made the comments to 60 minutes. Well that's going to be problematic.
posted by cashman at 10:39 AM on May 4, 2011

The actual name of the operation was Neptune Spear.

Neptune's weapon was a trident. If only the officer ranks were still staffed by graduates of Classics Departments.

Geronimo was just a code word invented at an unknown level for communicating the status of the ObL objective.

I could certainly imagine being pissed off about this if I were Native American, regardless how happy I was about the OBL story more generally. But hey, maybe one of the Navy Seals was one sixteenth Cherokee Princess!
posted by Rumple at 10:39 AM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Which lying national-security apparatus do I trust? CIA or ISI?
posted by symbioid at 10:41 AM on May 4, 2011

Gah, the other thread got deleted before I hit post:

Hey Mayor Curley, I thought that Frontline was excellent (as usual) and I was really impressed by how quickly it had been brought up to date. When I first read the description I was feeling bad for poor Peter Bergen, since I assumed he must have recorded his part before the news, but nope, he was all over it. Nicely done.
posted by homunculus at 10:42 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

1) Practices torture as a way to punish and extract information from detainees.
2) Accepts civilian casualties during the course of military objectives.
3) Accepts civilian casualties in their pursuit to force other cultures to adhere to their own set of values.
4) Accepts assassinations without due process of Law as legitimate.

All or most of these apply to just about every single county in the world and all the (so called) terrorist organizations... or any other group of individuals who hold that violence is an acceptable means to achieve their ends.

the biggest difference between Obama and Bin Laden, and I think this is significant.... is that one is elected and can be unelected and impeached if we elected the members of congress to do so. One is ultimately accountable by election, and if not that then has a limited amount of time in power. If the American people felt what Obama did was wrong then it would be a nail in the political coffin next year. You may not like it, and I am certainly ambivalent about it, but we are in a minority and no amount of complaining about "being led around by the nose", "being fooled" or other such weasel excuses changes the fact that this is what Americans want. Over time, that might change. I certainly hope it does. Right here right now I am not sad Bin Laden is dead. I am sad that we ended up in a cycle that led to this inevitable outcome. That cycle is not really any one politician's fault, but more the fault of what Americans are willing to accept, and what they want.

Oh yeah, the difference: The other, is self appointed for life (however long that is) with vast amounts of money and numerous followers who do not question him. Who can do whatever he wants for as long as he stays alive.
posted by edgeways at 10:43 AM on May 4, 2011

CBS News article linked from their tweet.

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said Wednesday that the Obama administration should not release the gruesome post-mortem images, saying it could complicate the job for American troops overseas. Rogers told CBS News he has seen a post-mortem photo.

"The risks of release outweigh the benefits," he said. "Conspiracy theorists around the world will just claim the photos are doctored anyway, and there is a real risk that releasing the photos will only serve to inflame public opinion in the Middle East."

"Imagine how the American people would react if Al Qaida killed one of our troops or military leaders, and put photos of the body on the internet," he continued. "Osama bin Laden is not a trophy - he is dead and let's now focus on continuing the fight until Al Qaida has been eliminated."

-----

Video of the comments will appear on the CBS "Evening News" on Wednesday.

posted by cashman at 10:43 AM on May 4, 2011

The Dalai Lama's been in the CIA pocket for years, of course he'd say shit like this.

The Dalai Lama fled across the mountains in the middle of the night in fear for his life and those of his followers. For virtually his entire adult life he's watched the Chinese try to erradicate his entire culture. He's a pragmatist.

Wikipedia notes "In 2001, the Dalai Lama told a girl in a Seattle school that it is permissible to shoot someone with a gun if the person was "trying to kill you", but added that the shot should not be fatal."

This "sometimes it is necessary to take counter-meaures" attitude from him is certainly not new.
posted by anastasiav at 10:45 AM on May 4, 2011

edgeways: ": The other, is self appointed for life (however long that is) with vast amounts of money and numerous followers who do not question him. Who can do whatever he wants for as long as he stays alive."

Are you talking Osama or Cheney? (who might I add, continues to defy the powerful cosmic force of Death)
posted by symbioid at 10:51 AM on May 4, 2011

This just in: President will not release photos of bin Laden's body.

I just saw that as well - apparently he made the comments to 60 minutes. Well that's going to be problematic.

I don't see why. Aside from a few nutjobs on Fox News, there really don't seem to be many people claiming that bin Laden's not really dead; even al-Qaeda's not saying so. The only good reason to release a photo would be to prove that he's really dead, but there's a high chance that it could also really upset people, particularly in the Middle East. Remember that ghoulish video of Saddam's hanging?

Releasing a picture now would be almost all downside with very little upside. If you were Obama, which would you rather be the iconic image of the death of bin Laden, the mutilated face of a martyr with half his skull blown off, or this?
posted by EarBucket at 10:51 AM on May 4, 2011

"I could certainly imagine being pissed off about this if I were Native American"

Why? I'm honestly asking. It's a code word. A cypher.

Also, these are trained killers charging into a building carrying bombs and machine guns. Trying to parse one of hundreds of code words they use for political correctness seems......... wtf?
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:53 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also from that CBS news article - "Two Republican senators -- Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, a member of the Armed Services Committee - told CBS News Wednesday they had seen post-mortem photographs of bin Laden."

So thus far among those who have seen the photos, Republican Mike Rogers has seen them.
Republican Saxby Chambliss has seen them.
Republican Kelly Avotte has seen them.
posted by cashman at 10:53 AM on May 4, 2011

I reiterate my belief that releasing a photo wouldn't prove anything to anyone who doubts that OBL was killed over the weekend. The decision to keep the photo under wraps makes sense.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:59 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why? I'm honestly asking. It's a code word. A cypher.

Because Geronimo is a heroic figure to many native Americans because he led resistance to American imperialism / western expansion and was captured by an American Army task force and made a prisoner of war.

I mean, its a stupid and insensitive choice because it equates OBL to this heroic figure, but I would agree shouldn't be blown out of proportion.
posted by Rumple at 11:01 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

CNN reports, "The president has decided not to release photos taken by Osama bin Laden after his death". So Osama bin Laden was clearly armed with a camera, which he continued to use even after being killed.
posted by klausness at 11:01 AM on May 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

So, we made up some legal excuse for our behavior. That doesn't mean shit.

I just finished rereading The Once and Future King, which I like to do every few years because it's awesome. And, once again, I am struck by how novel and relatively new the concept of "rule of law" really is. You don't have to look very far afield in time or space for contexts in which people don't even make up excuses for their behavior, they just do things because they can, to people who cannot prevent them.

It's therefore fascinating to me how quickly and deeply the concept of law over might has penetrated the psyche, such that we criticize whole nations for not adhering closely enough to it and feel like we can criticize those nations, because the law protects us. It's such a weirdly fragile thing, easily shattered by a bullet or truncheon. And yet it's such a powerful idea that its invented associates of "justice" and "civility" are ingrained indelibly.

I guess I'm saying that even though I have disagreed with people in this thread, I am strangely fond of the fact that they are objecting on the basis of the law. I'm pleased that we generally believe that we are accountable to each other. It's still pretty new as an idea, I think, but it has a lot going for it.
posted by Errant at 11:04 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I mean, its a stupid and insensitive choice because it equates OBL to this heroic figure, but I would agree shouldn't be blown out of proportion.

"Geronimo" was not OBL's code name. It was the code for when OBL was killed. "Geronimo" is also a common, if not downright cliched, name to shout out when performing acts of bravado and/or derring-do. It's also a good code phrase because it doesn't sound like any other word, so you get to avoid a "Who's on first?" scenario in the Situation Room.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:07 AM on May 4, 2011

"I mean, its a stupid and insensitive choice because it equates OBL to this heroic figure"

So if they had used the word banana instead would that mean they were equating him to a fruit? I'm really confused. Code word means, by definition, meaning is being obscured, not implied.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:09 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Or, maybe it was just a convenient way to draw attention to the hearings that were already scheduled anyway.
posted by cashman at 11:11 AM on May 4, 2011

Why? I'm honestly asking. It's a code word. A cypher.

Well, it is a name that many natives hold in high esteem. I understand the argument that it was just used as a code word was only a cipher, that argument does hold sway with me. But simultaneously I can understand why some may have an issue with associating a revered name with Bin Laden. Even if that association is happenstance, and unintentional. To some, it will come across as just further appropriation.

To be honest I doubt that all names are considered valid for operational names (Godwin Alert!!!) Operation Hitler? And if all names are not valid then it is not entirely random. I could legitimately see why a self-representing group of people would not want their hero's (Mexican) moniker associated with the self-same government that he fought against.

That is all
posted by edgeways at 11:12 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm realizing that I'm starting to get a little too emotional about things to be able to discuss the possible disintegration of my homeland into a bloody mess with any measure of dispassionate objectivity, so I'm going to step away from this thread for a while. I may be back later. And this isn't anyone's fault, it's just about how invested I am emotionally, just in case anyone suspects that I have been driven away by other posters' comments.
posted by bardophile at 11:16 AM on May 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

... its a stupid and insensitive choice because it equates OBL to this heroic figure, but I would agree shouldn't be blown out of proportion.

Well, it's that they hold Geronimo in high regard - more like, equating Geronimo to OBL.

Elite military types often have ways of thinking about their targets that seem strange to us. I think 'bad guy' is kind of an abstract notion to them, in that context, and they might have a hard time seeing it as disrespectful to Geronimo (who I'd also be willing to bet a lot of SEALs admire).
posted by lodurr at 11:16 AM on May 4, 2011

'Geronimo' was not an operation name, it was a cryptonym. These are typically drawn at random from a 'sterile list' of words which would not include names like Hitler.
posted by unSane at 11:16 AM on May 4, 2011

It's also a good code phrase because it doesn't sound like any other word

Team Six, repeat, did you say "Geronimo" or "Her Domino"?
posted by Flunkie at 11:17 AM on May 4, 2011

(and probably will not include names like Geronimo in future, if they have any sense)
posted by unSane at 11:17 AM on May 4, 2011

Geronimo has a long history in the armed forces.
posted by empath at 11:18 AM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

yeh, wonder if it includes 'crazy horse'? that's probably the only one that would be more incendiary for native americans.
posted by lodurr at 11:19 AM on May 4, 2011

Generally code words like this--internal ones, not the insufferable ones Bush subjected us to, are not for public consumption and are chosen by computer.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:19 AM on May 4, 2011

I suspect you don't know what to say to me because you cannot explain the difference in the effective foreign policies of Obama and Osama. Sure, there's a lot of talk, but talk is meaningless. ... So, we made up some legal excuse for our behavior. That doesn't mean shit.

If legalities don't mean shit and there's no difference between Obama and Osama and talk is all meaningless and it's all just a matter of sides, well, then I'd be a damned fool not to pick my side, wouldn't I?
posted by octobersurprise at 11:23 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The entire operation was about capturing and/or killing an enemy of the US (or just killing, depending on what you believe). The idea that the code name equates OBL to a hero is completely nonsensical. Does anyone really think the thought process was "Hey, let's give him a heroic name so he can go out in style?"
posted by desjardins at 11:25 AM on May 4, 2011

I suspect you don't know what to say to me because you cannot explain the difference in the effective foreign policies of Obama and Osama. Sure, there's a lot of talk, but talk is meaningless. ... So, we made up some legal excuse for our behavior. That doesn't mean shit.

Nice straw man! Since you have such amazing mind-reading powers, who do you have for the 5th race at Belmont Saturday?
posted by Ironmouth at 11:26 AM on May 4, 2011

If 'sterile list' means what it sounds like it is suppose to mean then Geronimo is not really a sterile word in the first place and inclusion on the list in the first place may be a little faux pas.

Does anyone really think the thought process was "Hey, let's give him a heroic name so he can go out in style?"

No, I don't think anyone here is arguing that point
posted by edgeways at 11:27 AM on May 4, 2011

I suspect you don't know what to say to me because you cannot explain the difference in the effective foreign policies of Obama and Osama.

Governments are allowed (in fact required!) to do things that individuals aren't. States must have a monopoly on violence or civilization collapses.
posted by empath at 11:27 AM on May 4, 2011

The entire operation was about capturing and/or killing an enemy of the US (or just killing, depending on what you believe). The idea that the code name equates OBL to a hero is completely nonsensical. Does anyone really think the thought process was "Hey, let's give him a heroic name so he can go out in style?"

I think that the argument of those who are taking offense is "they are saying Geronimo was an evil man", not "they are saying Bin Laden was a good man".
posted by Flunkie at 11:29 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

'Geronimo' was not an operation name, it was a cryptonym. These are typically drawn at random from a 'sterile list' of words which would not include names like Hitler.

Interesting comment from eriko on choosing code names. A key point:

The British also realized that they'd stumbled upon this because the Germans used a bad code name. And they wondered how many times *they* had done that -- and thus, the Ministry of Supply came up with the Rainbow Codes. There were several colors -- they rotated by day -- and a large list of nouns. Every time a coded project started, you call up the desk, and they'd look at the Color for the day, and then read the next noun off the list, and cross it off, and there was your code name. So, we had things like Black Arrow, the UK's only satellite launcher, Blue Sky, which entered service as the Fairley Fireflash AAM, and so forth.

posted by inigo2 at 11:30 AM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Thank you again, bardophile. Please be well.
posted by Errant at 11:43 AM on May 4, 2011

While I'm no fan of Rush Limbaugh, and think his rhetoric is over the top, I think he has the political calculation correct.

There is no way this administration is going to bring him here alive and apply their own sissified techniques to this guy. You talk about politically DOA. You bring Osama anywhere, you put him in Club Gitmo, and you give him an ACLU lawyer and then you promise him a trial, everything they’ve done with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. There is no way they were going to apply their own sissified policies they’ve tried on everybody else on Bin Laden. And, if they kept him alive and they brought him here and they did anything other than that, their base would go absolutely nuts.

That last point is pretty well vindicated by the overall tenor of this thread.
posted by BobbyVan at 11:46 AM on May 4, 2011

"Shooting him proves that they're sissies who don't have what it takes to shoot him"
posted by Flunkie at 11:53 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

There is no way this administration is going to bring him here alive

Obama has been saying for years we would kill him if we could. I guess I'll go digging for articles from around the 2008 election, but I remember thinking "damn, what happened to capture?" Limbaugh is onto nothing. He apparently missed Obama saying this years ago. But hey, I guess at least even that slimeball thinks that Obama got Osama. Get pissed and say shit after the fact all you want, but the way he's saying it sounds like he isn't a 'deather', so there's that.
posted by cashman at 11:53 AM on May 4, 2011

a hahahaha haaa hahahaha hhahaha ahha... ha... whew.. hold on i'm dying here... hahaha... ha......hahahah... sissified... hahahaha. macho man rush limbaugh... hahahhaa. big tough limbaugh... hahahahahaha... sissy obama, hahaha.

ok, ha... i... wait.

haha... ok, i'm done laughing now.
posted by symbioid at 11:55 AM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Obama has been saying for years we would kill him if we could. I guess I'll go digging for articles from around the 2008 election, but I remember thinking "damn, what happened to capture?"

Obama calls for Nuremberg-like trial if bin Laden is caught
posted by BobbyVan at 11:56 AM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Putting people on trial is a sissy thing now? We dealt with Timothy McVeigh in the sissy way? Really?

I'd like to see Rush Limbaugh trundle through the offices of the US Attorneys' offices and shout "SISSIES! SISSIES! ALL OF YOU, SISSIES!"

And then the next time he wants to sue someone, he'll forgo the justice system and then just slap their face with a white glove and challenge them to a duel.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:58 AM on May 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

then you promise him a trial, everything they’ve done with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. There is no way they were going to apply their own sissified policies

Yeah - what could be more sissified than the rule of law? Can you believe those forefathers - or should I call them forMothers? - mincing around with their "constitutions" and their "treaties"; waving the Magna Carta around like embroidered hankies? "Ooooohhhh, looook at meeeeee! I'm Thomas Jefferson! Free trials for everyone, except for my slaves! Would anyone like some teeeeeeeeeea?"
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:00 PM on May 4, 2011 [17 favorites]

Although, to give the devil his due, Rush is right that, were OBL held in custody, people would find all sorts of reasons to claim that his incarceration was in some way unlawful or inhumane, even if there were nothing especially bad about his incarceration. However, these people would be tiny in number, and they would complain about anything no matter what, just as Rush will always find a reason to denigrate Obama's team for a successful mission that, had it been done under Bush's watch (or McCain's watch), Rush would have declared the finest military operation in both recorded and unrecorded history.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

/Rush
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Geronimo" was not OBL's code name. It was the code for when OBL was killed.

I don't think the information we have is 100% certain to say this one way or the other. I suspect it's much more probable that it was the former -- equating a target leader with a target leader, rather than an event. It's just the way humans think about these things.

BobbyVan, I'm aware of few mod interventions in this thread thus far, and no apparent callouts or flameouts, so what is it about the tenor of this thread do you object? Or did you just say that with a lame "I'm not [a fan of Rush] but" disclaimer so you get the word "sissified" into the debate? And what of Bush's infamous "dead or alive" request? Was the "or alive" meaningful in this context?
posted by dhartung at 12:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

No you guys, listen to the armchair SEALs, capture was totally a viable option!
posted by Artw at 12:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

You think Geronimo is a bad code word, you should hear what the RAF came up with when they attacked the dams of the Ruhr valley.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:04 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

I keep thinking that there'll be an limit to how low the insane Fox News types will go, but I keep getting surprised. So I guess that's good - it kind of keeps me young, in a way.
posted by Nabubrush at 12:06 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

FOX News: No Limits!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:11 PM on May 4, 2011

Ha! I see that Glenn Instapundit Reynolds wrote an Obama-bashing editorial that was published on the day the bin Laden killing was announced, which included the following (Reynolds is comparing Obama unfavorably to Catret):

"Carter . . . approved the ill-conceived hostage rescue mission that ended with ignominious failure in the desert. Obama, by contrast, could only wish for such success."

What a tool.
posted by Eyebeams at 12:11 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama calls for Nuremberg-like trial if bin Laden is caught

Have you seen the video from the presidential debate that has been shown repeatedly? October 8, 2008 (after the article you linked) "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda, that has to be our biggest national security priority."

This goes to the Obama thing and also to the "base would be enraged" thing: "I count myself among the probably millions of Americans who would be happy to kill Osama Bin Laden with a spoon if I could. " - Rachel Maddow, October 2009.

And now, enough with the Rush derail. There are articles and substantive details still emerging. No need to pepper the thread with random yelling from the carnival barkers (yeah I said it).
posted by cashman at 12:11 PM on May 4, 2011

Update: Obama decides against releasing bin Laden death photos (CNN)
posted by lampshade at 12:15 PM on May 4, 2011

This just in: President will not release photos of bin Laden's body.
posted by ericb at 1:36 PM on May 4 [+] [!]

Update: Obama decides against releasing bin Laden death photos (CNN)
posted by lampshade at 3:15 PM on May 4 [+] [!]

I'm beginning to think the reason this thread is as large as it is isn't because of the discussion, but, rather the repeated re-linking.
posted by grubi at 12:17 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

The largeness adds to the redundancy. As the thread balloons in size and spirals into tangents, people are going to miss upthread links.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:19 PM on May 4, 2011

Rush is right that, were OBL held in custody, people would find all sorts of reasons to claim that his incarceration was in some way unlawful or inhumane, even if there were nothing especially bad about his incarceration.

Rush is right about this because Rush would be at the front of the line. Nothing would make him an advocate of prisoner's rights quicker than watching a Democratic President imprison Obama Bin Laden.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:20 PM on May 4, 2011

The re-linking accounts for probably 20 comments (I've read the thread). It actually helps disseminate information though, because some people watch from recent comments and some of this stuff (like the president going on 60 minutes sunday, the president going to NYC tomorrow) is important for people to know, and I think the consensus on this situation in previous long threads is that it is not that big of a deal.

That said, there's new information from Jay Carney (WH Spokesperson)

[Updated at 3:13 p.m. ET] The U.S. Navy SEALs who raided Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan "had the authority to kill (bin Laden) unless he offered to surrender," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday.

If bin Laden surrendered, the team was required to accept it if that could happen safely, Carney said. He provided no additional details on what occurred inside the compound when bin Laden was killed.

There was no question that the operation was lawful, Carney told reporters, adding that "consistent with the laws of war, bin Laden's surrender would have been accepted if feasible."

"I think it's entirely appropriate given the circumstances that he was brought to justice the way he was," Carney said.

posted by cashman at 12:20 PM on May 4, 2011

Sorry about that. Mods delete if you want.
posted by lampshade at 12:20 PM on May 4, 2011

Update: I'm beginning to think the reason this thread is as large as it is isn't because of the discussion, but, rather the repeated re-linking.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:20 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

You're not wrong, octobersurprise, but there would be voices on the left as well as the right, and I think the right-wing argument would be more along the lines of, "we were right all along, look at how hypocritical the left is." There is no realistic way Obama (or anyone else) could have handled this situation in a way that would have pleased everyone.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:23 PM on May 4, 2011

Gees, that Reynolds punditorial was such an amazing pile of ... wish fulfillment ... that I was left just shaking my head after reading it.

I mean, i was alive and politically-aware when Carter was president. I remember the hostage rescue debacle. I felt humiliated to be an American that day.

These days I like Jimmy Carter, but on his best day he was a 10th the President that Obama is on his worst.
posted by lodurr at 12:24 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm beginning to think the reason the thread is as large as it is is because Ctrl/Apple-F was made illegal by the PATRIOT Act.
posted by jocelmeow at 12:25 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Regarding post-mortem photos of Bin Laden:

Republican Mike Rogers has seen them.
Republican Saxby Chambliss has seen them.
Republican Kelly Avotte has seen them.

Republican Scott Brown has seen them.
posted by cashman at 12:26 PM on May 4, 2011

is it that they're only being shown to republicans, or is it that republicans don't understand security clearnances?
posted by lodurr at 12:28 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's that this is from just 2 or 3 reports. Maybe someone can find other officials who have already seen the photos?
posted by cashman at 12:29 PM on May 4, 2011

It seems like the easiest thing would be to show the photo to select leaders behind closed doors at the next UN meeting or something.

Show it to top diplomats in France, Turkey, and China, and let them vouch for the fact that it seems genuine.

Its not perfect, but maybe a middle ground?
posted by rosswald at 12:33 PM on May 4, 2011

BobbyVan, I'm aware of few mod interventions in this thread thus far, and no apparent callouts or flameouts, so what is it about the tenor of this thread do you object?

By tenor of the thread, I meant that there's a strong feeling among a significant number of commenters here that OBL should have been captured and put on trial. I'm not referring to the civility of the thread.

As for "sissified", you can make that your hobbyhorse if you want, but I certainly wouldn't characterize the Obama Admin that way.

Finally, as for Bush's "Dead or Alive" statement... I'm not sure I understand your point. If it's that Bush was a "sissy" too because he could have abided (politically) an outcome where OBL was captured alive... Well, I'd disagree. I don't think Bush's base (and many independents as well) would have minded terribly if OBL was held in Gitmo, Bagram Air Base, or some other black site for a period of time after his capture.

If you need any more proof of this... just look at the political debacle of attempting to try KSM in civilian courts. The Obama Admin backed away and sent the case back to a military commission (curiously, right around the time they started planning the operation in Abbottabad).

I really wasn't trying to derail the thread with namecalling (I think most Mefites are capable of absorbing the larger political point without being overly distracted by carnival barking, and yes, that's what I think Rush Limbaugh is). I see plenty of cheap shots taken against conservatives and Republicans on Metafilter and try not to get too riled up about them.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:33 PM on May 4, 2011

+100
Payback! +50
Headshot! +50
Execution! +100
posted by Tom-B at 12:34 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin thinks it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret.So now I'm convinced the president is doing the right thing.

Plus, don't cater to the crazies anyway. They won't even believe actual proof.
posted by theredpen at 12:37 PM on May 4, 2011 [9 favorites]

Nobody has answered the question of how the SEALS are supposed to know he's not armed to "capture" him. No one.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:39 PM on May 4, 2011

If you need any more proof of this... just look at the political debacle of attempting to try KSM in civilian courts.

I was under the impression that the kernel of debacledom came from the fact that, were KSM to be tried in a civilian court, classified information about the use of torture would be out in the open, as well as potential evidentiary consequences stemming from the use of torture. This was a no-win situation for Obama.

Show it to top diplomats in France, Turkey, and China, and let them vouch for the fact that it seems genuine.

I wouldn't be upset if this happened, but: why? What does the Turkish diplomat know about how genuine a photograph is or isn't? It's absolutely trivial to forge a photograph. Asking for a photograph is like demanding that Obama double-pinky swear that he's not lying.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:40 PM on May 4, 2011

Republican Mike Rogers has seen them.
Republican Saxby Chambliss has seen them.
Republican Kelly Avotte has seen them.
Republican Scott Brown has seen them.

I wonder how long until some staffer with a camera phone leaks them.
posted by the_artificer at 12:42 PM on May 4, 2011

Oh, of course these wouldn't be people who are trained at forensic photography (or whatever it is called).

But just getting a wide sample of respected/powerful leaders to say that "at least it looks real" would maybe be enough to sway some of those in the international sphere who are skeptical.
posted by rosswald at 12:43 PM on May 4, 2011

Sarah Palin thinks it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret.

She tweeted that moments after it was announced that the photos would be kept secret. If it had been announced that the photos would be released, what do you think she would have tweeted? That the President was doing the right thing? Or that it's a bad idea to release the photos?

Sarah Palin doesn't think it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret. Sarah Palin thinks she can score political points.
posted by Flunkie at 12:43 PM on May 4, 2011 [11 favorites]

I felt humiliated to be an American that day.

Your identity as an American is so entwined with our military prowess that our failure to free some hostages humiliates you? I don't get that mentality.

Also what is with the labeling of anyone who doubts that Osama is dead a crazy or nutjob? I mean just because a person doesn't take the word of the corporate media/government doesn't make them crazy. Unless of course you know the individual personally and have the qualifications to diagnose the person as mentally insane; then by all means carry on.

Not saying I don't believe he's dead.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:44 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was under the impression that the kernel of debacledom came from the fact that, were KSM to be tried in a civilian court, classified information about the use of torture would be out in the open, as well as potential evidentiary consequences stemming from the use of torture. This was a no-win situation for Obama.

I think that's part of the "debacledom", sure. I also think that President Obama was in a politically weakened position at the time (sputtering economy, 2010 mid-term results), and didn't think he could convince the American public why it was necessary to endure public trial of KSM.

But most intriguingly, I think there's a good chance that President Obama did not want to set a precedent with KSM that would force him to try OBL publicly, should OBL have been captured alive. Compare the timeline of the decision to raid OBL's compound in Pakistan against the decision to send KSM back to the military tribunal (linked in my comment above). For the record, Attorney General Eric Holder also sits on the NSC, so he knew about the acceleration of plans to hunt down OBL when he announced the decision on KSM.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:46 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sarah Palin thinks it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret.

But what does Donald Trump think?
posted by homunculus at 12:48 PM on May 4, 2011

Sarah Palin doesn't think it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret. Sarah Palin thinks she can score political points.

Wait. Let me look at that again:

Sarah Palin thinks

That certainly is news.
posted by grubi at 12:48 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Nobody has answered the question of how the SEALS are supposed to know he's not armed to "capture" him. No one.

I'm gonna go with by using the same technology that allows them to look through walls and clothes. Also, as I stated up thread there are a plethora of non lethal technologies that could have been used to take him alive with minimal risk to our soldiers. As more and more information comes out it's becoming more and more clear he was assassinated. Of course no one really knows but the seals who were there and the president's team.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:49 PM on May 4, 2011

Sarah Palin thinks it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret.

I waiting to hear from the team from The Biggest Loser before I form my opinion.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:50 PM on May 4, 2011

"Geronimo is a heroic figure to many native Americans because he led resistance to American imperialism"

Not being American, my only exposure to "Geronimo" is from the excellent Geronimo Shot Bar in Tokyo. I guess some interesting theme nights would be on the schedule for next few weeks.
posted by vidur at 12:54 PM on May 4, 2011

Also what is with the labeling of anyone who doubts that Osama is dead a crazy or nutjob?

Because they don't have a reasonable explanation for the disbelief.

Also, as I stated up thread there are a plethora of non lethal technologies that could have been used to take him alive with minimal risk to our soldiers.

So, you have experience running combat missions in close quarters? Tell me more.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:57 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm gonna go with by using the same technology that allows them to look through walls and clothes.

Please elaborate. Show me a link showing that the special forces are using technology that sees through clothing. A brief google search turned up a new system which is only helo-mounted and weighs 500 pounds and is deployed 15,000 feet in the air. Nothing allowing anyone to see through clothes. No guessing here or magic bullets. Please show us this magic system that allows the SEALS to look through all of this and also show me that it was deployed in this operation.

Just making it up doesn't count here.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:58 PM on May 4, 2011

Link
posted by Ironmouth at 1:00 PM on May 4, 2011

Well this liberal would have preferred that OBL had been shot with really slow bullets. The kind that take several hours to burrow through the flesh. And then, instead of pictures of the body, we could have made video of the death available on pay-per-view. Then we could have used the proceeds to pay off the national debt.

This is not for justice or because I think it would solve anything. It's because I would love to see the Republicans heads explode from trying to find any way to slime their way under that low of a bar.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:00 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

So thus far among those who have seen the photos, Republican Mike Rogers has seen them.
Republican Saxby Chambliss has seen them.
Republican Kelly Avotte has seen them.

But they're in the government so they are probably lying, according to the logic some are attached to in this thread.

We need Trump's expert investigators to see the photos to really confirm. I mean, that's reasonable right?
posted by juiceCake at 1:03 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Special Forces had full authority to kill bin Laden: Panetta.
So glad that we can now say he was executed.
posted by adamvasco at 1:04 PM on May 4, 2011

Also, as I stated up thread there are a plethora of non lethal technologies that could have been used to take him alive with minimal risk to our soldiers.

Which non lethal technologies? Having dealt with a bunch of police use-of-force cases, I am somewhat familiar with these technologies. They are never deployed as weapons in a house-clearing operation. Never. They are used for crowd control, primarily. If there is any chance a suspect may be armed, police general orders require the use of firearms if possible, with firing center-mass as standard operating procedure. I had a department attempt to terminate an officer who only fired at the leg of a suspect who was fleeing for failing to fire center mass.

I do wish to see your link.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:04 PM on May 4, 2011

Special Forces had full authority to kill bin Laden: Panetta.
So glad that we can now say he was executed.

The full quote:

The US Special Forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan were given the full authority to kill the al Qaeda leader unless he surrendered

powerfully disingenuous. Try giving us the whole story the next time. And it is the government we are not supposed to trust?
posted by Ironmouth at 1:06 PM on May 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

Reuters releases photo of dead body at OBL compound after US raid (warning: graphic).
posted by BobbyVan at 1:07 PM on May 4, 2011

I want to hear Trump create an analogy to explain why we need the photos released publicly.

But seriously, skeptics, why would GOP representatives/senators lie about seeing the photos? They pretty much live to embarrass Obama over every little thing.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:07 PM on May 4, 2011

Special Forces had full authority to kill bin Laden: Panetta.
So glad that we can now say he was executed.

They were authorized to kill him, not ordered to do so. Can you not see a difference?
posted by rtha at 1:09 PM on May 4, 2011

Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
I'm X-ray Cat. I've got super powers.
I can see through wooden doors
with my X-ray vision. Wooden doors.
I can see the criminal on the other side.
He can't see me, and he's committing crime.
I come along and say "I can see you. He says
"You can't." I say "Yes, I can with my..."
X-ray...
X-ray Cat.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:09 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

They were authorized to kill him, not ordered to do so. Can you not see a difference?

Apparently the narrative is more important than pesky facts.
posted by zarq at 1:10 PM on May 4, 2011

Ex-Justice Department Official: Obama Could Be Forced to Release the Osama Death Photos.
posted by ericb at 1:11 PM on May 4, 2011

I felt humiliated to be an American that day

Wow. You are aware that you have allowed yourself to be humiliated by sand, right? There was no military confrontation that we lost. We had equipment that wasn't up to the task, and the mission was scuttled as a result at the last possible moment, after we had already ... you know ... violated Iranian sovereignty and all that.

I don't think there's any objective analysis of Operation Eagle Claw that sees it as anything but one of the most audacious military operations of the Twentieth Century (surpassed by few, except perhaps the follow-up rocket-propelled C-130 Plan B that wasn't ready by the end of Carter's term). Taking that risk was a key moment of Carter's presidency and he should be commended for it, not vilified.

The outcome was, in fact, a major learning experience for the US military and led to many fundamental changes in operations, with a direct traceable line to Seal Team Six and JSOC.

Of course a failure will be seen as a failure, and become political fodder, but that's politics. I don't see where personal humiliation comes from in connection with Eagle Claw specifically. It would be more accurate to attribute it to the hostage taking, and the powerlessness we all felt to do anything about it. But Christ -- at least Carter tried.

God forbid it had actually gone through and we'd lost many men and hostages in the extraction; I can only imagine the counterfactual history from that point.

BobbyVan, thank you for the reasonable response. I'm still not entirely clear on what you're trying to accomplish with some of your links.
posted by dhartung at 1:13 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm gonna go with by using the same technology that allows them to look through walls and clothes.

I'm guessing your are either thinking of thermal imaging, which wouldn't necessarily show a weapon unless it had been kept close enough to the body for long enough to develop a heat signature (an unreliable at best way of determining if someone is armed) or you are thinking of some other kind of movie magic technology that doesn't exist, or at the very least, isn't in a small enough form to be deployed to individual soldiers.

Also, as I stated up thread there are a plethora of non lethal technologies that could have been used to take him alive with minimal risk to our soldiers.

None of which a soldier is going to carry into a combat environment. Police, yes. They have a vested interest in trying to keep the civilians they are sworn to protect alive, but that's not what soldiers and particularly not Seals are trained for. That extra two seconds taken to switch to a potentially ineffective less-than-lethal weapon might be the two seconds that gets your team injured or killed.

It's not a happy situation, but it is the reality of the thing. Combat soldiers priority is not to capture, so unless the target is immediately very clear about their intention and willingness to be taken alive, that isn't an expectation that anyone should have.
posted by quin at 1:13 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

AElfwine Evenstar writes "All of which led to more violence. The Punic wars surely solved the problems Rome had with Carthage, but it was the beginning of Roman expansion outside of the Italian peninsula. Rome went on to use violence again and again until it's ultimate collapse. "

I was talking about it solving things for the people of Carthage, the Bo and the Anasazi. Violence pretty well solved all their problems.

Rumple writes "Neptune's weapon was a trident. If only the officer ranks were still staffed by graduates of Classics Departments."

Code names are supposed to be nonsensical. It would have been bad if the god matched the weapon.
posted by Mitheral at 1:15 PM on May 4, 2011

bardophile, for what it is worth, it seems to me that most evidence/precedence points towards a peaceful change when/if the US withdraws military assistance. As I said before: look at South America, a continent riddled by pompous dictators just a generation ago. Those who are saying otherwise are just repeating the "muslims are scary" rubbish.
Even Zardari admits, in one of your links, that the radically conservative segment of the Pakistani population is less than 30%. That is considerably less than the number of Americans who are creationists and birthers.
posted by mumimor at 1:15 PM on May 4, 2011

Reuters releases photo of dead body at OBL compound after US raid ...

Interesting detail:

"Other photos, taken hours later at between 5:21 a.m. and 6:43 a.m. show the outside of the trash-strewn compound and the wreckage of the helicopter the United States abandoned. The tail assembly is unusual, and could indicate some kind of previously unknown stealth capability."

Ex-Justice Department Official: Obama Could Be Forced to Release the Osama Death Photos.

A condensed user guide for how to submit FOIA requests, by Nicole Johnson. Summary jpg.
posted by cashman at 1:16 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Special Forces had full authority to kill bin Laden: Panetta.
So glad that we can now say he was executed.

Well played. A masterful parody of utter horseshit.
posted by juiceCake at 1:19 PM on May 4, 2011

They were authorized to kill him. They did so. A legal order was executed as was the man.
It doesn't worry me but it seems to worry you. Also these people.
European discomfort grows about bin Laden killing
Sometimes you need to get out of the Goldfishbowl.
posted by adamvasco at 1:20 PM on May 4, 2011

Show the photos to Alex Jones, David Icke, and Joe Farah. That should keep everyone happy.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:20 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

dhartung: Wow. You are aware that you have allowed yourself to be humiliated by sand, right?

Wow. You are aware that nobody in those pre-internet days knew jack shit about what had had actually happened out there that night, and so it was kind of understandable that teenage boys might feel a little ashamed at what seemed like what was supposed to be the most bad-ass country in the world tripping over its own shoelaces?

IOW: Get off your horse.
posted by lodurr at 1:23 PM on May 4, 2011

An execution would have been after a trial.
An assassination would not have allowed for his surrender.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:26 PM on May 4, 2011

Source Told Amanpour That Bin Laden Was In 'Comfortable Villa'.
posted by ericb at 1:26 PM on May 4, 2011

I don't see what's so hard to get. The team was trained for this mission, and told not to kill Osama if he gave himself up. It's almost certain he didn't, considering his ideology and the official story, which I think is most likely true as it's more parsimonious than other theories I hear being kicked around, even as it changes when new evidence comes to light. Osama was apparently unarmed (as far as current evidence goes), but it seems that his guards were fighting if there was a firefight. A person surrendering would probably tell his guys to back down and raise his empty hands.

Perhaps, in hindsight, we could have incapacitated Osama and taken him alive. But that's hindsight. In the chaos of a fight against an enemy clearly not interested in giving up, I can't blame the soldiers making split-second decisions for not thinking to shoot him in the knee instead of the head or switch from assault rifles to tasers or whatever.

An execution-style murder or assassination, in my understanding of the term, would be if Osama gave himself up, and then the soldiers shot him anyway. A true execution would require due process. Without evidence of this happening, I don't see any reason to suspect it. First of all, these are highly trained soldiers on a clear mission that's being closely monitored, not some guys out for mob justice. Second, the military would hate to give up the opportunity to get Osama alive. He's full of intel, and even if he said nothing, seeing Bin Laden spend the rest of his life in a supermax prison with the most depraved criminals in the country sends a strong message. Rather than being a martyr who went down fighting for a cause (and to an eternal reward in the eyes of his followers), he's leading the least glamourous and most pathetic existence he could have.

I don't get the see-through walls technology derail, but here's a backpack radar solution that can see through walls. Considering Team Six probably gets the cool toys before everyone else, it's possible they had something like this.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:29 PM on May 4, 2011

Rumsfeld Flip-Flops: Now Says Harsh Interrogation Of Detainees Was ‘Critically Important’ In Bin Laden’s Death.
posted by ericb at 1:29 PM on May 4, 2011

bardophile is a Pakistani living in Pakistan.
What makes you think I am not aware of that?
I was reacting to her last post:
I'm realizing that I'm starting to get a little too emotional about things to be able to discuss the possible disintegration of my homeland into a bloody mess with any measure of dispassionate objectivity, so I'm going to step away from this thread for a while. I may be back later. And this isn't anyone's fault, it's just about how invested I am emotionally, just in case anyone suspects that I have been driven away by other posters' comments.
Also, I personally believe the anti-muslim scaremongering has brought us all hell for the entire last decade (at least), unnecessarily, and in particular, it has prevented democratic and economic development and maintained terror in those countries where "the West" deemed it necessary to keep corrupt leaders in power.
posted by mumimor at 1:30 PM on May 4, 2011

For example, the overhead view that was beamed to the Situation Room and CIA. What type of satellites were used and what are their capabilities?

ZOOM AND ENHANCE!
posted by inigo2 at 1:30 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, but lodurr, you did say this:

These days I like Jimmy Carter, but on his best day he was a 10th the President that Obama is on his worst.

You're not a teenager anymore. That mission was a military failure, not a presidential one. The result of too many can-do generals saying "Can do, Chief!"
posted by Trochanter at 1:33 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually, Sen. Scott Brown hasn't seen the picture after all.

I guess he must have clicked on one of those Facebook fakes...
posted by Jugwine at 1:34 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Some data points for the discussion:

SEALs are pretty good shots. They generally hit what they aim at.

Ironmouth refers up-thread to an engagement protocol for room-clearing for police officers that includes center-of-body targeting. That's because that's a reliable shot for a police officer, who may or may not be a good shot but, regardless, doesn't practice shooting in combat situations like SEALs do.

A head-shot is probably more or less the SEAL equivalent of that center-of-body shot.

SEALs are probably much, much better equipped than anyone on this thread (except SEALs or Deltas) to take someone alive who was offering resistence. That said, and as I'm sure Ironmouth could support [if i recall correctly he's an attorney who deals with a lot of cases involving police and shots fired], even experts can't immobilize people with perfect reliability in a combat situation.

They shot bin Laden's wife in the leg. They probably meant to do that.

They shot bin Laden in the head. They probably meant to do that, too.

We will never really know whether the SEALs who shot bin Laden felt their lives were at risk from him. We have to take their word for it. We pay them to make those judgments. I'm not trying to make them into saints or even heros, but I am saying that we (meaning the American nation) train and sanction them to use their judgment. That doesn't mean we just give them a pass, but it does mean that if we choose to second-guess them, we're going back on a deal these guys thought they had.
posted by lodurr at 1:35 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

You realize that radar that can see through walls also sees through people. Right?

They had exactly one chance to get this right, and to get it wrong would have been a disaster of inconceivable proportions. All this talk about non-lethal weapons and magical x-ray machines is just mind-boggling to me. Here you had the wartime commander of the enemy forces and people are seriously arguing if killing him was justified?
posted by unSane at 1:36 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Actually, Sen. Scott Brown hasn't seen the picture after all.

I guess he must have clicked on one of those Facebook fakes...

Wow, really? How pitiful is that?
posted by cashman at 1:37 PM on May 4, 2011

Unless he surrendered. What's your answer to that?

Can you prove that he attempted to surrender?
posted by narwhal bacon at 1:37 PM on May 4, 2011

You're not a teenager anymore. That mission was a military failure, not a presidential one. The result of too many can-do generals saying "Can do, Chief!"

Yes, but on that day when I was ashamed -- that day that dhartung seems so amazed at -- I was in fact a teenager living in a pre-internet age, in a country that was obsessed with its president's inadequacies.

So, no, I wasn't made ashamed "by sand."
posted by lodurr at 1:38 PM on May 4, 2011

lodurr writes "Ironmouth refers up-thread to an engagement protocol for room-clearing for police officers that includes center-of-body targeting. That's because that's a reliable shot for a police officer, who may or may not be a good shot but, regardless, doesn't practice shooting in combat situations like SEALs do.

"A head-shot is probably more or less the SEAL equivalent of that center-of-body shot. "

I've watched the wire. You want the head shot when you are close enough because you can't tell if the target is wearing body armour.
posted by Mitheral at 1:39 PM on May 4, 2011

Stealth chopper may have been used in raid (Daily Mail, sorry, but it has all the photos): The blown up helicopter (that flopped over under 'hot and high' conditions) had some unusual features that have "stumped" aviation experts.

I noted that the Pakistani Army trucked away the debris beneath tarps. On our request? Or is this an EP-3 situation?
posted by dhartung at 1:39 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Unless he surrendered. What's your answer to that?

Can you prove that he attempted to surrender?

It is my understanding that he did not attempt to surrender at all, hence the justified use of lethal force against him.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:44 PM on May 4, 2011

lodurr, I'm not arguing about your shame on that day, I'm against this "not a tenth of the president" thing.

I think Carter was president at a really shitty time. I don't know if there's been a man of morals in the office since.
posted by Trochanter at 1:47 PM on May 4, 2011

Stealth chopper may have been used in raid (Daily Mail, sorry, but it has all the photos) ...

From that article another interesting detail:

"'The Beast of Kandahar' i.e. the secretive RQ-170 surveillance drone, was said to have filmed the daring raid and transmitted it back to the President in real time."

posted by ericb at 1:48 PM on May 4, 2011

It is my understanding that Navy SEALs, like the unicorn, can emit a special rainbow-ray that causes enemies to surrender, but in this case chose not to, on the grounds that Barrack Obama is a motherfucker.

You couldn't be more wrong. It was on the grounds that liberals are sissies. Pay attention.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:48 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Jesus that's quite a flip-flop by Rumsfeld. I guess the right wing noise machine sat him down for a talk.
posted by Eyebeams at 1:50 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I wonder what sorts of technology were used in this raid ... some of which we may never really know about. For example, the overhead view that was beamed to the Situation Room and CIA. What type of satellites were used and what are their capabilities?

Satellites are used for reconnaissance, and we can presume they're of the Keyhole variety (think Hubble, pointed earthward), but are impractical for real-time observation.

That would have been provided by aerial capabilities, such as the reported use of a stealth RQ-170 drone. That was probably the source of any real-time overhead imagery, which may have included infrared as well as FLIR.
posted by dhartung at 1:52 PM on May 4, 2011

To avoid offence future Navy SEAL missions will use the codenames “APPLEJACK”, “RARITY”, “RAINBOW DASH”, “PINKIE PIE”, “TWILIGHT SPARKLE” and “FLUTTERSHY”.
posted by Artw at 1:53 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, anyone into spy satellites want to talk about the state of the art (that we know of) for them to date?

I know that it's not like in the movies or TV, where the CIA can just zoom in on any license plate in the country within seconds and get a clear photo of the numbers. Aside from angles, we have the blurry refraction from the atmosphere meaning no matter how great resolution, light in the exposure, or lenses get, we still can't make out fine details of terrestrial objects from a picture taken outside our atmosphere. This appears to be a hard limit of the technology, unless we invent a lens with a negative refractive index, which sounds hard but maybe potentially possible with metamaterials.

I also think I read that there's a big issue with quality being better from low-orbit satellites, but that they can't stay over an area very long because of their orbits. Geosynchronous spy satellites can stay over an area to get a nice stream, but as they are farther away so they get less good images.

All of this talk about spy satellite limitations gave me the impression that they were mostly good for looking at the geography of the area and finding suspicious buildings in foreign territory, maybe some vehicles at best. If you wanted real details, you'd want a spy plane (or drone these days) to go in, which is riskier since spy planes can be detected an shot down much easier. But then again, this is based on stuff I probably read back in the early 2000s, which then was probably based on Cold War info. But apparently in this case they could make out that there were multiple people inside through the walls of a building via infrared?
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:55 PM on May 4, 2011

I'm pretty sure those are already the codenames for the members of Team Six.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:56 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Didn't Rumsfeld simply say in his original comments to Newsmax that no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay (leaving open the possibility that other enhanced techniques may have been used at Gitmo, and that those same detainees could have been waterboarded elsewhere, previously, by the CIA)? I don't see the inconsistency or the flip flop, but am happy to be convinced otherwise.
posted by BobbyVan at 1:57 PM on May 4, 2011

It's the slippery slope that we fear. I can say, hey, if the U.S. or the U.N. or the entire world was ever justified in assassinating one person, that one person would be Osama bin Laden.

But then, if we're justified in one assassination, an execution without a trial and without a law authorizing the assassination, then what prevents a second? Or a third? More importantly, what prevents a legal assassination of our elected leaders, our political candidates, of me, of my wife, of my children? I mean, just how bad does a person have to be to merit an assassination; and who gets to decide how bad a person is?

Now then, bin Laden is not the first Al Qaeda guy we assassinated. Most of these assassinations (even on Pakistani soil) have been done with Predator drones. But the outcry has always been the same: the collateral damage. Nobody seems to be bothered by the fact that the number 3 guy from Al Qaeda was killed. We are, however, rightfully bothered that (lots of) civilians were killed in the process.

The killing of Osama bin Laden is no different. If we look at this as wartime conditions, and we have a chance to take out the head of the organization terrorizing us, then we do it. It's not a political issue. It's a military issue; its a wartime issue.

I think part of the assumption here is that Osama bin Laden was some sickly, old guy, a retired warrior, a guy that hasn't committed a war crime in a decade. I don't think that's true; I think he was, up until his death, the leader of Al Qaeda. The Number One guy. The general. He was not just a figurehead; he still communicated and was in active leadership for Al Qaeda (hence the couriers and computer

I think part of my point is, "surrender" under military and wartime conditions is a little different that surrendering to the cops; it's probably a term of art.

The other part of my point is that, if, in the middle of war, you see Goebbels having tea in a hillside mansion, you take that fucker out.
posted by jabberjaw at 2:11 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

New Petition Favors Replacing Congress with SEAL Team Six.
posted by ericb at 2:12 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is a long thread. Has anybody made the OBL was kissed by a rose joke, yet?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:15 PM on May 4, 2011

Mystery Surrounds bin Laden Wife Wounded in Raid -- "Report: US request to interrogate her is rejected by Pakistan."

Why 'dat, Pakistan? Afraid she could 'spill-the-beans' about your government harboring her, Obama and others?
posted by ericb at 2:16 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Kiss From A Rose.
posted by ericb at 2:17 PM on May 4, 2011

[Updated at 5:08 p.m. ET] Osama bin Laden was "moving" at the time he was initially shot, according to a U.S. official who has seen military reports of the Monday morning incident in Abbottabad, Pakistan. But the official declined to describe the movements more specifically, CNN's Barbara Starr reports.

Previously, another U.S. official said bin Laden was unarmed but was making a threatening move when he was shot. When asked if bin Laden tried to grab a weapon or physically attack a commando, the official would only say, "he didn't hold up his hands and surrender."
posted by cashman at 2:19 PM on May 4, 2011

Bin Laden Aides Were Using Cell Phones, Officials Say -- "5 phones were seized; such communication would be big flaw in al-Qaida security."

"The phones were in addition to 10 hard drives, five computers and more than 100 thumb drives. ... 'They didn’t use land lines or the Internet, but they did use something else, cell phones,' said the official."

posted by ericb at 2:20 PM on May 4, 2011

Re: Our Ally Pakistan.

"With fronds like these, who needs anenomes." /Nemo's Dad
posted by Trochanter at 2:21 PM on May 4, 2011

... harboring her, Obama and others?

Goddammit, Rush. Hands off my keyboard, you miserable fuck.
posted by ericb at 2:21 PM on May 4, 2011

Does that mean Bin Laden's been under implicit/explicit Pakistani military protection since way back when Pervez Musharraf was still our boy in Pakistan--back when the Bush admin was personally paying the guy billions every year in direct cash payments?

It's interesting that the loudest howls of complain outside of the GOP have been from Musharraf.
posted by Artw at 2:22 PM on May 4, 2011

...outside of the GOP and you lot, obviously.
posted by Artw at 2:23 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Not that I approve of conspiracy theories (although they're still fun to ponder even as the X-Files is ancient history)... but what better way to reframe the question "Was OBL killed in the compound or not?", than turn it into "Was OBL killed resisting capture or not?"
posted by panaceanot at 2:24 PM on May 4, 2011

A senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters that the wife and up to eight of bin Laden's children who were also in custody will be questioned by Pakistani officials and then probably turned over to their countries of origin, and not the United States, in accordance with Pakistani law.

She's Yemeni. She'll be in US custody and interrogated about five minutes after she is repatriated.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 2:25 PM on May 4, 2011

Asked if harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay played a role in obtaining intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, Rumsfeld declares: {...} "It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."

Compare that to his remarks to Hannity:

"I’m told there was some confusion today on some programs…suggesting that I indicated that no one who was waterboarded at Guantanamo provided any information on this. That’s just not true. What I said was no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the U.S. military…Three people were waterboarded by the CIA…and then later brought to Guantanamo. In fact, as you point out, the information that came from those individuals was critically important."

Rumsfeld is a master of specious reasoning and bureaucratic casuistry, so his trying to have it both ways in this case should not be surprising.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:27 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think with the amount of potential data and sources recovered that there is likely a lot of worried folks high up in Al-Qaeda right now. Lotta scrambling and running going to going on right now. I'd actually be shocked to see any well coordinated counter strikes anytime soon. A year or so from now? Yeah possible if they survive as an effective organization. Right now? doubtful.
posted by edgeways at 2:27 PM on May 4, 2011

Flunkie: Sarah Palin doesn't think it's a bad idea to keep the photos secret. Sarah Palin thinks she can score political points.

True dat. And I guess my response was about as nuanced as hers. Still can't help feeling a boost of confidence in the powers of good when she complains about something.
posted by theredpen at 2:37 PM on May 4, 2011

Doktor Zed: You're gonna need to parse things out, because I'm still not seeing a contradiction. All you did was quote Rumsfeld and call him some names.
posted by BobbyVan at 2:51 PM on May 4, 2011

Given his past statements re: israel and palestine, i have to believe that Joe in Australia is engaged in some kind of elaborate troll.

Probably trying to establish precedent & a body of opinion for next time Israel assassinates somebody; playing Devil's advocate to draw out others' opinions justifying this kind of murder.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:52 PM on May 4, 2011

the radically conservative segment of the Pakistani population is less than 30%. That is considerably less than the number of Americans who are creationists and birthers.

I felt that this was worth repeating. Many people don't realize (or won't admit) that, for all our collective finger-pointing at those awful awful violent fundamentalist regimes in other parts, America is, per capita, one of the most fundamentalist countries in the world.

I find this piece of data helpful to remember when I start wondering what the FUCK the problem is with a certain percentage of Americans.
posted by Aquaman at 3:13 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

I also think I read that there's a big issue with quality being better from low-orbit satellites, but that they can't stay over an area very long because of their orbits. Geosynchronous spy satellites can stay over an area to get a nice stream, but as they are farther away so they get less good images.

Also, you can only have a geostationary orbit over the equator.

You can get much of the effect you'd want from geostationary orbits by having multiple satellites in sun-synchronous orbits, or if you wanted through a *check spelling* molniya orbit.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:15 PM on May 4, 2011

Doktor Zed: You're gonna need to parse things out, because I'm still not seeing a contradiction. All you did was quote Rumsfeld and call him some names.

Rumsfeld's remarks always need careful parsing, especially when there are bureaucratic battles to be fought.

To Newsmax, he says that waterboarding and "harsh treatment" was not part of the interrogation at Guantanamo Bay that led to useful intelligence - which keeps the DoD free from accusations of torture - but to Hannity, he muddies the discussion and talks about CIA waterboarding before saying that the individuals gave useful information, which leaves the impression, post hoc ergo propter hoc, that the waterboarding was instrumental. If anyone calls him out, he can say that he didn't explicitly make this link while still sticking it to the Company, but otherwise, he's given his audiences what they want to hear while advancing his interests.

Standard operating proceedure for him.
posted by Doktor Zed at 3:18 PM on May 4, 2011

Unless he surrendered. What's your answer to that?

oopsie! my bad!
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:30 PM on May 4, 2011

So you're basically saying Rumsfeld speaks carefully. Fair enough. You've also made an argument that Rumsfeld makes a logical fallacy on the efficacy of waterboarding (which is a fair critique). But you've shown neither a flip flop nor a contradiction.
posted by BobbyVan at 3:30 PM on May 4, 2011

So you're basically saying Rumsfeld speaks carefully. Fair enough.

Someone who speaks carefully might say that, yes.
posted by Artw at 3:45 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Rumsfeld was very carefully and knowingly creating an apparent link between torture and this mission's success in the minds of a huge segment of the gullible public (aka Fox News Viewers), while at the same time being extremely careful to not actually lie about it.

Yeah, it's not flip-flopping, nor is it technically a contradiction, so I guess that makes it A-OK, right?
posted by Aquaman at 3:50 PM on May 4, 2011

To be fair, I'm sure he gave his traditional signal that he was attempting to mislead - moving his lips.
posted by Artw at 3:59 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

Okay, I'm not drawing parallels, but for some reason the debate on killing bin Laden reminded me of this scene from Lethal Weapon 2.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:04 PM on May 4, 2011

quality being better from low-orbit satellites, but that they can't stay over an area very long because of their orbits

They're travelling at a nominal 14,000 mph. That's not very long over one position at all. You need one with an orbit over your location or an incident that is worth an expenditure of some propellant to slightly alter that orbit. At best you might reasonably expect one or two or three shots of your pinpoint location within a 24-to-48-hour period.

Satellites were an excellent tool during the Cold War, as they're well-suited for photographing stable, permanent installations such as missile launch sites or counting aircraft or tanks at a base. They really don't work particularly well for guerrilla warfare applications because of the small unit size and limited reliance on heavy equipment requiring logistics and infrastructure.

The tool of choice these days is the drone fleet. The battlefield workhorse is the Raven^, the size of a typical model airplane, that can be operated by a unit in the field. (Because there's not much to these, they've actually been sold to Pakistan.) The Global Hawk does most of the aerial recon, and the Predator hits targets. For this, though, they needed the stealth capability and long flight duration of the RQ-170.
posted by dhartung at 4:10 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

So you're basically saying Rumsfeld speaks carefully.

Rumsfeld speaks more than carefully - he regularly employs sophistry and rhetorical devices to come out (temporarily) ahead in a given discussion. The contradictory impression left by these two interviews isn't accidental, nor is the care with which Rumsfeld has chosen his words to leave him with an escape clause (c.f. his tactic of issuing numerous memos with multiple opinions on topics in order to return later to the ones that conveniently show him at an advantage). The subtext to this back-and-forth, however, is why you're apparently so personally invested in arguing for the effectiveness and necessity of "'enhanced' interrogation" - which Rumsfeld had no qualms about approving - when the consensus among the veteran professionals is the opposite.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:12 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

he regularly employs sophistry and rhetorical devices to come out (temporarily) ahead in a given discussion

Doktor Zed, I think you are pointing the above phrase in the wrong direction. If you want to talk about Rumsfeld's memoir, his memos written while SecDef, or my own remarks on the ethics of torture, fine. But the only sophistry I'm seeing is in your own arguments on the matter at hand.

Rumsfeld was initially asked an oddly-specific question about "enhanced interrogation" techniques at Guantanamo Bay, and he answered the question directly (taking the opportunity to reiterate that, contrary to popular belief, waterboarding was not performed at Gitmo). After the misinterpretation of his earlier comments, Rumsfeld addressed the larger issue about "enhanced interrogation" techniques as they related to the development of the intel that led to Bin Laden. Seems simple enough to me.

Unless you can show me where these two quotes are in conflict, I'm getting off this particular merry-go-round.

A) Asked if harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay played a role in obtaining intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, Rumsfeld declares: {...} "It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."

B) "I’m told there was some confusion today on some programs…suggesting that I indicated that no one who was waterboarded at Guantanamo provided any information on this. That’s just not true. What I said was no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the U.S. military…Three people were waterboarded by the CIA…and then later brought to Guantanamo. In fact, as you point out, the information that came from those individuals was critically important."

posted by BobbyVan at 4:41 PM on May 4, 2011

ABC news is reporting that pieces of the wrecked helo might be on their way to China.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:49 PM on May 4, 2011

ericb writes "Mystery Surrounds bin Laden Wife Wounded in Raid -- 'Report: US request to interrogate her is rejected by Pakistan.'

"Why "dat, Pakistan? Afraid she could "spill-the-beans" about your government harboring her, Obama and others?"

Maybe because they don't want their citizens disappearing into a US government black op site to be water boarded and tortured hundreds of times for months on end? *Hollow Laugh* Anyways; no country should be just turning over their citizens to the US just because the US asks.
posted by Mitheral at 4:51 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyways; no country should be just turning over their citizens to the US just because the US asks.

no one was asking.
posted by clavdivs at 5:00 PM on May 4, 2011

The statements from White House staffers in this LA Times story make it clear that this was an assassination mission, not a "capture or kill" mission. Apparently bin Laden's surrender would only have been accepted if he had been naked - but he was killed before he could even speak, let alone accept an instruction to remove his clothes. Not that any such instruction appears to have been given.

Osama bin Laden's surrender wasn't a likely outcome in raid, officials say

Officials revise their initial account of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, saying the rules of engagement all but assured the Al Qaeda leader would be killed....
Bin Laden could have surrendered only "if he did not pose any type of threat whatsoever," White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan said....
Added a senior congressional aide briefed on the rules of engagement: "He would have had to have been naked for them to allow him to surrender." [...]
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on PBS television Tuesday that he did not believe Bin Laden had a chance to speak before he was shot in the face and killed.

"To be frank, I don't think he had a lot of time to say anything," Panetta said.

Incidentally, I want to give a shout-out to my buddy Empath for collecting my statements on other assassinations. I'll be happy to address any inconsistencies you can find in them, but I should note that some posters here have asked that it be taken to MeMail. Your choice, though.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:11 PM on May 4, 2011

Maybe because they don't want their citizens

She's Yemeni. She'll be turned over to them and they will likely turn her over to us.
posted by rtha at 5:11 PM on May 4, 2011

Bin Laden 'Firefight': Only One Man Was Armed -- "He was killed early on at guest house, and four others — including al-Qaida leader — never fired a shot."
posted by ericb at 5:24 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

"In fact, most of the operation was spent in what the military calls 'exploiting the site,' gathering up the computers, hard drives, cellphones and files that could provide valuable intelligence on al Qaeda operatives and potential operations worldwide.

The U.S. officials describing the operation said the SEALs carefully gathered up 22 women and children to ensure they were not harmed. Some of the women were put in 'flexi-cuffs,' the plastic straps used to bind someone’s hands at the wrists, and left them for Pakistani security forces to discover.

But despite the fact that only one of those killed was armed, everyone was considered a serious threat, the U.S. officials said."

posted by ericb at 5:27 PM on May 4, 2011

Maybe because they don't want their citizens disappearing into a US government black op site to be water boarded and tortured hundreds of times for months on end? *Hollow Laugh* Anyways; no country should be just turning over their citizens to the US just because the US asks.

That would hold a lot more water if Pakistan wasn't already accused of disappearing thousands of people, with torture and killing as likely outcomes for some.
posted by edgeways at 5:38 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks ericb. Richard Marcinko (seal team six creator) was on CNN. i'll post the trancript when i can find it.
posted by cashman at 5:41 PM on May 4, 2011

edgeways: That would hold a lot more water if Pakistan wasn't already accused of disappearing thousands of people, with torture and killing as likely outcomes for some.

"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world."

Governor John Winthrop
(1630 on board the Arbella)

posted by Trochanter at 5:47 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I observe a lot of dumbfounding comments in this thread. Emphasis on the "dumb". Some of you are as loopy as the worst tea partiers.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:56 PM on May 4, 2011 [6 favorites]

All the senators who said they saw the bin Laden death photo were duped by fakes.
posted by dirigibleman at 6:38 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

5freshfish, don't read the comments on Yahoo news story about death photos of other men killed in raid (from BobbyVan's link). Because those comments make these comments look like the minutes from a friendly, neighborhood Mensa meeting.
posted by jeanmari at 6:44 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

is it that they're only being shown to republicans? ^
posted by Alt F4 at 6:45 PM on May 4, 2011

How about something like "if he's unarmed and everybody else has been subdued, try to resist the temptation to shoot him."

When I get off driving a forklift, I like to go over and give advice to those morans at Fermi lab. 'Cos they don't know what they're doing. Me, I know all about fisics.

"Seriously, if he was the USA's worst enemy then wouldn't capturing bin Laden have been the most significant intelligence coup ever?"

Seriously, you know what would be neat? Being a chess grandmaster. I think I'm going to go do that tomorrow.

"Surely it would have been worth almost any cost."

Ah, the problem is these concepts you're positing have no 'scope' setting on them. Almost any cost how? A cost that results in nuclear war
I consider a bit too high. One nuke lobbed over the border, too high.
How much you willing to spend in innocent Pakistani civilian lives?
No one outside the compound was killed. Some noncombatants inside the compound were injured. Pretty clean operation to me.

"That is, if there was any actual military rationale behind this whole operation and it wasn't just "yay! we get to kill the guy that dissed us!"

The guys at NASA had no rationale for going to the moon. It was just "yay! we get to fire rockets randomly and hope for the best"

The oscillation between the ideas in this thread are that 'the US has this wide spectrum dominance of every event down the the last detail' and 'the US couldn't find its ass with both hands' but it's weird to see them in the same thought.

"Osama bin Laden's surrender wasn't a likely outcome in raid, officials say

Would you surrender if you thought you were going to be sent to Gitmo to be waterboarded for the rest of your life?

Regardless of the truth of the matter, that's what Bush handed off the the U.S.
I'd be surprised if anyone surrendered to us at any time in the forseeable future. It actually makes the job harder to capture people. They tend to y'know, fight to the death instead.

Besides which, it's hard to convince Pakistanis that the US stands for democracy or human rights, when they have hard evidence to the contrary in their direct experience

Yeah, I know. We have some disparate elements ourselves and it must look like schizophrenia from the outside when we have major shifts in policy after elections. But it
really is what most of us believe in, even if we don't walk the walk. Hell, I wish we could get the message through to ourselves.
Disney's vision seems more powerful than Jefferson's in our own country.

And, bardophile, the scary thing is, exactly, access to nukes. Not only "Are the sites defensible?", but is the political will there?
Not only to vigorously defend them, but to quit tolerating terrorist sympathizers. Revealing OBL was hiding in Pakistan was a big embarrassment. Not that I don't think U.S. policies shouldn't be resisted when they're detrimental...
...but it's kind of like the way Fox News got rid of Glen Beck. Kind of a "yeah, we're crazy, but we're not THAT f'ing crazy" sort of thing.

As it sits now, I don't think there's any question who's on the clean end of the leash regarding Pakistan and AQ. But whatever you touch, touches you.
Puppies can be cute, fun to walk around, but they grow and without discipline, who knows what they can pull you into.
But that's just sort of a loose thumbnail sketch from this perspective
.
What's solid is, I do know we're all fucked if we in the U.S. don't get our own end of things cleared up. There's no excuse I can think of to lay this all on the military to come through with an operation like this and then not put up on the civilian side and actually help the situation instead of letting folks languor in the conditions that gives rise to terrorism in the first place.

Because it wasn't about a military outcome; it was about being the coolest President either, and a live bin Laden would simply have been embarrassing.

Again, you're not familiar with military operations. The president does not fly in on a fighter jet himself and fight the aliens. He sets policy.
The military gives him options - here are some things we can do under the parameters you set. We believe under "X" condition you set we would have to do "Y." If you set condition "Z" we advise going with option "B." If you don't want the Pakistan army to respond in force, we suggest "this."

As the option Obama chose involved an insertion involving personnel rather than a drone strike or say what Clinton did on Infinite Reach in '98, I can say with confidence "capture" was a priority.

I assure you - when you fire a cruise missile at someone's location, you are very much trying to kill them. Call that an assassination if you like.

Speaking of which - all this is the same bullshit. Back then people said Clinton did that (amongst other things) to get himself out of the plochops scandal.

It is insulting to the people who get wounded or killed trying to execute these kinds of operations that they would do it for the pure vanity of the CiC or anything other than national security or what they believe to be or have been led to believe to be is in the interest of national security. And I don't know how people can speak up in the media and not get called on it. "Look, these SEALs are big heros, but they're too dumb to see how evil Obama/Clinton/De Jour is, but you and *I* know..." like it's f'ing pro-wrasslin.

And we have already conducted air strikes within Pakistan's borders so it's not like we couldn't have done it that way.

So one possible military outcome wanted was indeed to capture OBL. (Because why risk him getting away?)
If it's possible, great. If not, fuck it, grab what you can, but whatever you do, don't engage the Pakistanis.

It wasn't possible, within the parameters set, to capture OBL, under the conditions in the field.
Too tough to understand?
I don't know why the SEALs couldn't McGyver up a new helicopter from spare parts and bits of change in the street to take all the captives with them. Delta Sierra.
But Obama probably told them to crash one of the helos

What's the guy doing, wearing transparent clothes?

Indeed, the salwar kameez is pretty baggy, yo.

And yeah, there are a number of scenarios in a safe house, built to be a safe house, apart from the immediate possibility of redundancies in the surveillance system (even mechanical backups given the history of that in the region) and backup on its way, that I can think of which would necessitate shooting a not currently armed man.

Apart from escape as well, which would have REALLY REALLY REALLY sucked ("Hey, OBL was in Pakistan! We saw him!" "uh huh, sure" tough enough time convincing some people he's dead now or wasn't dead 5 years ago) - there's concealment (he could have waited it out and summoned other forces), destruction of evidence and weapons concealment.

Funny, you would think people would be aware of what you can do with a stud finder and a sawzall, much less what can be hidden in a house custom built to be secure.

The El Rukins connected with Muammar Gaddafi had their "Temple" rigged with solid steel doors and reinforced concrete walls. Special teams had to lay down cover fire while using battering rams and cutting torches to get inside. And then there were interior rigs, hidden panels in walls with weapons...
... did I mention this was downtown Chicago in the '70s? Yeah.

Safe house technology has advanced since then too.

Pretty sure a guy who could pull off the kind of operation OBL had, odds are he's not ordering from Radio Shack. So hands on is kind of the option.

There is no way this administration is going to bring him here alive and apply their own sissified techniques to this guy.

Jesus Christ what I wouldn't give for two minutes in a ring with Limbaugh. C'mon, show me what a sissy is hemorrhoid boy.

Also, as I stated up thread there are a plethora of non lethal technologies that could have been used to take him alive with minimal risk to our soldiers

What part of "COVERT OPERATION" is understand?
The more stuff you take, the heavier you go in, the LESS COVERT it is.
The less covert it is, the more chance there is for engagement with other forces.
The greater the chance of that, the greater the chance for escalation and civilian casualties.
How complex is it?
Fast, light, silent.

"These SEAL teams -- this SEAL team went through several rehearsals before doing this, right?"

Alright people, again *clap clap clap* we have to get this right before showtime.

Aaand 5! 6! 7! 8! kick,and turn, and shoot, turn, shoot and kick, kick-kick-kick-and-Jim-you-bitch-you-shot-too-soon.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:51 PM on May 4, 2011 [18 favorites]

NY Times reporting that bin Laden had "a rifle within reach."
posted by gerryblog at 6:56 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

If five fresh fish is talking about people annoyed that the U.S. carried out a successful assassination attempt:
Even Hitler would have been given a fair trial if he had been captured. (Probably despite Churchill's wishes.) That was just the kind of people we were then, or that we tried to be, or that we told ourselves we were. Maybe it mattered than both evidence and sentiment against him was overwhelming and there was no way he could have come out of it found innocent.

But at least with Bin Laden dead we don't have to go back and have the argument yet again about how we shouldn't torture prisoners, because you can bet interrogators would have been lining up to use the genital tasers, along with several Republican candidates for President.
posted by JHarris at 6:56 PM on May 4, 2011

Even Hitler would have been given a fair trial if he had been captured

You know who else tried to assassinate Hitler? The allies.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:01 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

If five fresh fish is talking about people annoyed that the U.S. carried out a successful assassination attempt:

Or he's talking about people annoyed that bin Laden didn't surrender. But you word it your way, I'll word it mine.
posted by inigo2 at 7:01 PM on May 4, 2011

The Reuters' pics that show three dead men and the interior of the compound.

Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.

The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths.

Link to graphic pics is here, article here.

Why the significant pics of OBL dead are not being revealed makes no sense to me.

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan painted a stunning picture Monday of Osama Bin Laden’s final moments alive: the al-Qaida leader was armed and possibly firing at oncoming U.S. forces while using his own wife as a human shield.

Another unidentified official, likewise, walked back public comments from Brennan that suggested Bin Laden used his wife as a shield. In fact, it now appears that Bin Laden’s wife wasn’t the woman killed during the raid at all, and instead was only injured during the firefight.

In addition to other discrepancies, one report says she's 29, another that she's 27. Also, she apparently married him when she was 15. Or else in her late teens.

Six children and two wives of slain al-Qaida head Osama bin Laden were taken into custody by Pakistani forces, China's Xinhua said, quoting a local channel.

Also killed were bin Laden's trusted personal courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed and his brother, both earlier identified as two of bin Laden's al-Qaida facilitators, and an unidentified woman.

Brennan, one of the few men who has been given permission by the White House to speak publicly about the details, is the one who has advanced many of statements that have been refuted behind the scenes.

What is up with that? There are so many wrong details and so many from Brennan? (chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; officially his title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President. His responsibilities include overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters)

OBL's mom was known as was known as the "the slave wife."

Omar Bin Laden, who said he had a "terrifying childhood", married an English woman 25 years his senior.
posted by nickyskye at 7:06 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

did I mention this was downtown Chicago in the '70s? Yeah.

Oakland/Bronzeville, South Side, actually. But otherwise another fine comment.
posted by dhartung at 7:11 PM on May 4, 2011

Bin Laden 'Firefight': Only One Man Was Armed:

Four of the five people shot to death in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, including the al-Qaida leader himself, were unarmed and never fired a shot, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday — an account that differs markedly from the Obama administration's original claims that the Navy SEALs came under heavy small-arms fire in a prolonged firefight.

Thanks for that, ericb.

Brennan, one of the few men who has been given permission by the White House to speak publicly about the details, is the one who has advanced many of statements that have been refuted behind the scenes.

Yeah, that's embarrassing. The extrajudicial assassination went smoothly, but the talking about the extrajudicial assassination gets more Keystone Kops by the minute.
posted by mediareport at 7:20 PM on May 4, 2011

Would you surrender if you thought you were going to be sent to Gitmo to be waterboarded for the rest of your life?

Hell, being shot while unarmed by U.S. troops bursting into his room was probably near the top of Osama's "favorite ways to die" list.
posted by mediareport at 7:30 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

Outrage filter: Celebrate Bin Laden's Positives
From a New Zealand MP (member of parliament for Americans)
The MP is question is "highly controversial" or more accurately a bit of a douche who likes publicity and has recently formed his own political party.
Contact details here if you'd like to participate in crowd-sourced democracy and let this manipulative attention seeker know what you think.
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 7:30 PM on May 4, 2011

LEXID® X-ray imaging device

New 'Sprint' in-wall radar imaging system unveiled

Bottom line is regardless of the technology aspect if the U.S. intelligence apparatus wanted OBL alive the mission would have been planned and executed as a snatch and grab. The fact that most Americans eat whatever info the government spoon feeds them is kinda depressing.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:36 PM on May 4, 2011

"The fact that most Americans eat whatever info the government spoon feeds them is kinda depressing."

I think this is a gross misunderstanding of whats going on here.

I suspect most Americans are glad he's dead, and given the nature of the scumbag in question, have no real reason to care how the Whitehouse wants to spin it.

You: "The President lied!!!"
Me: "Well, OBL is dead. So....."
You: "But the President lied!!!"
Me: "Well, he's still dead."
You: "So you don't...."
Me: "Dead."

Seriously. I don't care. And I really doubt most Americans do either.

If the WH wants to tell some yarn about how he hid behind a woman and pissed himself, so be it. I don't care. Scumbag deserves to have such lies spread about him.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:46 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

The only conclusion you can draw from the unarmed men is that you don't want to fuck with the SEALs. Or at least that we're not okay with assassinating women and children anymore.

I bet the guy who killed the wife is getting so much shit from his peers. The other casualties seem surgical.

If I were an enemy of the USA, I'd sleep naked with my hands up. When the DevGru comes for you, only the instinct to surrender can save your life. Maybe the weather too but I wouldn't gamble like that.

I wish there was a better way. The threat threshold for kill shots is obviously lower than most of us are comfortable with. I haven't heard any realistic alternatives.

Re: snatch and grab, are there examples of successful missions against high value targets or is that the sort of thing you need security clearance with Infinity Ward to know about? If they did use portable imaging devices (it is possible) and identified weapons before breaching and thought Osama was moving toward the weapons, would shooting him be the right move?
posted by polyhedron at 7:50 PM on May 4, 2011

edgeways writes "That would hold a lot more water if Pakistan wasn't already accused of disappearing thousands of people, with torture and killing as likely outcomes for some."

Hence the hollow laugh.
posted by Mitheral at 7:51 PM on May 4, 2011

Reuters, AP photojournalists describe staging of Obama photo taken after TV announcement of bin Laden’s death

As President Obama continued his nine-minute address in front of just one main network camera, the photographers were held outside the room by staff and asked to remain completely silent. Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.

I did not know that. Apparently this is standard practice: all photos of Presidential addresses are actually staged re-enactments!

Doug Mills, New York Times photojournalist and former Associated Press staffer, says it has been done this way always, always … well, as long as I have covered the White House, going back to the Reagan administration. We [still photographers] have never, never, never, ever been allowed to cover a live presidential address to the nation!

The truthiness of US Presidential photo-ops isn't especially important, but I wonder how many other iconic photos are actually staged performances made with the connivance of reporters.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:51 PM on May 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

When the DevGru comes for you, only the instinct to surrender can save your life.

Of course, you could also just not live in a house with Osama bin Laden.
posted by unSane at 7:57 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

The truthiness of US Presidential photo-ops isn't especially important, but I wonder how many other iconic photos are actually staged performances made with the connivance of reporters.

The reenacted walk-off is pretty weird, I agree, but on the other hand, telling your friends at a party to smile for the camera is staging a performance made with the connivance of you.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:00 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

how many other iconic photos are actually staged performances made with the connivance of reporters.

It's photographers, not reporters, but anyway, all the time. Have you ever had your photo taken for the press? I'd say a majority of photos not of disasters in progress are in some way staged - "Stand over here. Face this way. OK, put your arm around him. Lower that giant paperboard check. Hold the giant scissors still over the ribbon. Shake hands and smile. Fix your collar. Let's walk through that again. OK, act like you've just seen each other after a long separation." I don't even get my photo taken a lot and it's always relatively staged.
posted by Miko at 8:01 PM on May 4, 2011

I liked how when they panned out, he was on a horse
posted by Flashman at 8:03 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

From the moment this news broke, I assumed that this may have been an assassination, and I was able to accept that. Not like jumping up and down, cheering and flag-waving, and shooting off guns and fireworks happy, but accepting that I could see how this might have been a necessity and relieved that the hunt for OBL was over.

Conscious of the death, pain and devastation visited on OBL's family and the other people at that site. Tragic, but this seemed like such an extra-ordinary circumstance that I could deal with this.

Then, I come home tonight, and see this from Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA (extracted from BobbyVan's comment):

"...these teams conduct these kinds of operations two and three times a night in Afghanistan. They've got tremendous experience with how to do this and do it well. And so, you know, they moved in on the same basis moving against this compound that they do almost every night in Afghanistan. ..."

Fuck me.....

So, we are visiting this kind of horror on families all over Afghanistan on a near nightly basis.

We are:

Knocking down doors, possibly with guns blazing.

Physically restraining wives attempting to protect their husbands to the point of shooting them if we are crossed.

If subjects resist capture, we may choose to kill fathers right in front of their children.

These horrors are happening "almost every night in Afghanistan".

Jesus Fucking Christ...

I'm sick, sick, sick reading this, realizing the reality that this must be true. Sickened at my own obtuseness for never before fully imagining the full extent of the violence occurring by our own hands on a daily basis in Afghanistan.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I assume they must mostly hate us by now. I surely would.

Please Jesus, please can't we turn this latest killing into the opportunity to get the hell out of there at the earliest, earliest possible moment, like yesterday. Please, please, please...
posted by marsha56 at 8:05 PM on May 4, 2011 [9 favorites]

I think the disconnect comes from the fact that we all know that people posing for a camera are posing for a camera, but a photo of Obama walking to a door after a speech doesn't seem like it should be a pose or a reenactment. I suppose the rationale is to avoid goofiness like that famous picture of GWB struggling with the door.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:06 PM on May 4, 2011

doesn't seem like it should be a pose or a reenactment.

Mmmm, maybe it doesn't seem like it to most people, but on the other hand, if you give it even a little reflection it should become obvious how very, very many casual-seeming things in life are staged. It's an on-camera event for the press: of course it's staged, just like Leno's and Letterman's entrance every night is staged, just like a graduation ceremony is staged, just like a wedding is staged. Any time you are doing something before the public that has even the tiniest element of performance, you stage it. I put on lectures as part of my job, and what seems so dumb - a guy gets up, makes a 30-second intro to the speaker, welcomes them onstage, sits back down, speaker takes podium - actually requires a two-page timeline in which each movement in that activity is directed. And how much more professional is the White House at this than me? A lot, I hope.

A lot rides on the President's communications looking smooth and ultra-professional. No "is this thing on? We start bombing..." stuff, please. It's not shady to do this, it's what we have a good staff team in the White House for. They think about every possible nuance of appearances and risks of embarrassment or disorganization, so the President doesn't have to, and it comes out looking like a well-run operation and not a "uh...what do I do now? This way? Should I take these papers with me - oh never mind [drops papers] D'oh!" clown show.
posted by Miko at 8:42 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

please can't we turn this latest killing into the opportunity to get the hell out of there at the earliest, earliest possible moment, like yesterday.

The thing is our tax payer dollars paid for billions of dollars of United States weapons sold to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Possibly nuclear arms.

We armed them to the hilt over the last 32 years with billions and billions of dollars of armaments and ammunition. Missiles, the whole shebang. We trained Afghani soldiers.

Both countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, are in political chaos, riddled with dictators and dictator wannabes. Our taxpayer dollars have filled the coffers and pockets of really corrupt people in that part of the world, for decades. And made them truly dangerous.

Afghanistan now has no societal infrastructure at all. It is an utterly broken country, smashed to pieces first by the Russians, then by the USA. The illiterate, uneducated, impoverished, desperately isolated, poor people there wouldn't have a ghost of a chance against some nutcase dictator at this point.

Afghanistan truly needs nation building. Roads, schools, hospitals. Very basic amenities it doesn't have now. The entire country is in a purgatorial Middle Ages situation. With United States weaponry we put in their hands. And many fundamentalists/Taliba/Al-Qaeda there with a passion for killing Westerners.

Over Big Biz Oil paranoia, our government in the USA created a monster there. As it has done elsewhere in the world, eg Iraq.

Pakistan became the third largest recipient of US military aid in the world, behind only Israel and Egypt. Much of that aid was going to arm the mujahadeen who launched raids into Afghanistan, seizing large chunks of real estate. A pattern emerged.

Then there's the CIA heroin buisiness it created in Afghanistan and Pakistan, providing the USA and the world with opiates of all kinds. (Which, of course, taxpayers then have to pay for rehabs, prisons, social workers, generations of dysfunctional families of addicts and the mayhem they bring every community).

Each time the Hezbi-i Isbmi secured land, they immediately planted it to poppies. Between 1982-1983 opium harvests along the Afghan/Pakistani border doubled in size and by 1984 Pakistan was exporting 70% of the world’s heroin. [6] During that time the CIA Station in Islamabad – Pakistan’s capital – became the largest spook den in the world. Golden Crescent heroin output surpassed that of the Golden Triangle just as the CIA began its biggest operation since Vietnam.

The United States armed Muslim fanatics, who have been creating military mayhem in that part of the world for centuries, are famous for being terrorists and their guerrilla warfare, now leave, it would be total chaos of an even more gigantic kind. No, the USA cannot leave there. Not now.

And basically the USA is there to protect itself from the Russians building an oil pipeline to the Persian Gulf and taking over the global oil business (aka The Carter Doctrine). No way the Big Oil companies in the West will let the Russian oil oligarchs do that.

The chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan serves US interests (Big Oil Biz interests).
posted by nickyskye at 8:52 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

It's photographers, not reporters

I think, Miko, the preferred term is "photojournalist."

It's not shady to do this

I disagree. A good photojournalist would mention events were restaged for the camera. That they don't is a sign the profession needs work.
posted by mediareport at 8:54 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Smile for the camera as a manipulation = staging globally significant news event photographs.

No, not the same. At all.

After Sunday’s raid by US Navy SEALs which led to the killing of the Al-Qaeda leader, a senior Obama administration official had described the property as an “extraordinarily unique compound” in an “affluent suburb” and valued it at $1 million.

The price that Osama paid: Not $1 million for his Abbottabad abode, not even $500,000. Half of that, if that

Property records obtained by The Associated Press show Mohammad Arshad bought adjoining plots in four stages between 2004 and 2005 for $48,000.

Certainly nothing in that house looks remotely like a mansion, raw concrete rooms, dry earth around the property. A three storey building is, however, not a cave in Tora Bora.

Looking at house prices in Abbottabad, a quarter of a million$US (21 million Pakistani Rupees approx) could buy an actual mansion.

What did make the building obviously different were: "three tiers of barbed wire, which set the compound apart from the rest of the neighborhood."

"Reports indicate that only a handful of people lived inside the compound and so it is unclear what the large space was needed for."

But elsewhere reports say "According to international media reports, after killing Bin Laden, his son and two others, the American commandos took nine women and 23 children away from the compound, according to US officials. "

His son, and OBL and 3 unidentified men in the graphic Reuters photographs makes 37 people in one house, allegedly. Hardly what could be called "a handful" by anybody.

One report says one wife was living with OBL, another says two wives.

Am bothered by all the inconsistencies and discrepancies. Certainly the local people around the compound don't believe OBL was in that house.
posted by nickyskye at 8:55 PM on May 4, 2011

Purposeful Grimace: "ABC news is reporting that pieces of the wrecked helo might be on their way to China"

Well it's more like one guy saying he wouldn't be surprised if that was happening....

More telling in that report to me is the item regarding electrical service being cut off, which we heard about before and someone was saying isn't too uncommon, but they mention that cell service went out also. EMP anyone?
posted by Big_B at 9:12 PM on May 4, 2011

I disagree. A good photojournalist would mention events were restaged for the camera.

The AP and Reuters did. It's definitely ethical and appropriate for a caption to note that it's a reenactment, but I don't see people concerned that it wasn't captioned as such, but that it's done at all. That's a different thing. People are only noticing it now because they're looking at each piece of information under a metaphorical magnifying glass now. It may be that the tastes of the public are changing and we don't like the feel of this any more, but it's fair to note that this has been a very standard procedure for quite some time. If you regularly watch or listen to press events from the White House, you'll be very aware of the sounds and flash from the cameras. This would indeed be disruptive to most presidential addressed delivered live - especially serious ones. How would that address have felt had we had the typical camera flash and shutter sounds throughout? This wasn't a press briefing or a press event - it was a direct live address to the public and staged as such.
posted by Miko at 9:14 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Property records obtained by The Associated Press show Mohammad Arshad bought adjoining plots in four stages between 2004 and 2005 for $48,000

In the subcontinent, we don't allow the property records to show the actual price paid for the land/building.

The usual practice is to split the payment into black (cash or some other form of off-the-record transaction) and white (legally shown price). Tax is only paid on the "white" part. Both sides of the transaction prefer such arrangement.

In New Delhi (India), where I recently unsuccessfully looked to buy an apartment, the split is 40-60 wherein 40% of the price is to be paid in "black money". For land, it could even get as ridiculous as 90-10 (which was asked from me, but I couldn't figure out how to convert all my white money into black even if I wanted to).

I don't know what the proportion or the prices in Abbottabad may be, but the "property records" are quite certainly not the full picture.
posted by vidur at 9:28 PM on May 4, 2011 [5 favorites]

I think, Miko, the preferred term is "photojournalist."

Also, willing to accept that some might prefer this higher-falutin term, but in the newsroom people generally say "send out a photographer," not "send out a photojournalist," and their professional association is the National Press Photographers Association. The Pulitzers are for "news photography;" the AP calls them "photographers, as does the Washington Post, the LA Times, and who knows how many other papers/outlets - that's enough for now. This didn't represent a verbal misstep on my part, it's also pretty standard usage.
posted by Miko at 9:30 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Wild cannabis also grew along the outer walls of the compound itself.

A senior Pakistani Army officer even lived next door: Major Amir Aziz, 45, served as a commander in the Army Medical Corps.

Mr Qasim said the Khans had eight or nine children between them and that two or three women also lived in the house.

The locals don't believe Osama lived in that house.

Yet more discrepancies:

Besides recovering four bullet-riddled bodies from the compound, Pakistani security agencies also arrested two women and six children, aged between 2 and 12 years, after American forces flew towards Afghanistan. Some reports suggest 16 people, including women and children, were arrested from the house, most of them Arab nationals.

Not 23 women and 9 children.

The official said a 12-year-old daughter of bin Laden was among the six children recovered from the three-storyed compound. The daughter has reportedly told her Pakistani investigators that the US forces captured her father alive but shot him dead in front of family members.

“Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot,” a well-informed official explained.
posted by nickyskye at 9:32 PM on May 4, 2011

Nickyskye: Remember all the references to "walls up to 18 feet high"? As far as I can tell that's talking about the outside wall of an exterior building, which has a flat roof and a parapet. It might be 18 feet from ground level to the top of the parapet, but that has nothing to do with the height of the actual walls that were built to prevent intrusion. Ignore the side of the exterior building (which looks as though it's about twenty feet wide) and you're left with a fairly normal 10-12 foot wall around the property. I must have seen a zillion compounds with similar walls in Asia.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:41 PM on May 4, 2011

No, not the same. At all.

I do think they're entirely the same, but can you articulate what the problematic and significant difference is here between allowing the photographers to photograph the speech itself, and allowing them to photograph the President posing in a restaging after the speech, especially if it's noted? In order to be a problem there has to be a difference. What is the difference?
posted by Miko at 9:48 PM on May 4, 2011

Miko, if they tell us that it's actually a photo of the US President addressing the nation then we're accepting the fact that they lie to us. In this instance it's not a problem, but if we accept it we're implicitly granting permission to lie to us on other occasions. Why not just call it a reconstruction?
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:10 PM on May 4, 2011

The United States armed Muslim fanatics, who have been creating military mayhem in that part of the world for centuries, are famous for being terrorists and their guerrilla warfare, now leave, it would be total chaos of an even more gigantic kind. No, the USA cannot leave there. Not now.

I suppose some of this is true. I mean, I know the us arming them part is true. And that we can't morally just turn our back on them is true. But I'm not seeing that we are making any kind of progress. We certainly owe it to them to do whatever we can to help them fix their country. But, I don't know if we are capable of doing that. I don't know if there is the political will to make that our primary reason for being there. I know that Powell's "You break it, you bought it" is true. I just don't see any light ahead. I don't know what is to be done, and that just increases my anger and despair and frustration over us getting into this position in the first place. Sorry, just feeling especially heartsick tonight over the ongoing suffering that our present and past actions are continuing to cause.
posted by marsha56 at 10:14 PM on May 4, 2011

Miko, I misread that it was only re Obama that pics were staged.

Say hey Joe in Australia, what's up with talking about the wall height? I was only talking about the wild cannabis growing outside the walls.

More discrepancy points:
to buy eggs, salt, milk and sweets for up to seven children in the compound.

The two brothers are believed to have been killed along with bin Laden in the US raid on their compound in Pakistan on Monday.

One of them, Arshad, is said to have been the trusted courier who unwittingly led American intelligence officials to discover bin Laden's hiding police after an eleven year search.

So of the 3 men in the Reuters pics two are thought to be the Khan brothers who bought/owned the house. OBL's son, either Hamza or Khalid, was supposed to be shot. But he was not in the Reuter's photographs. And OBL was supposed to be shot. So that would make five men killed and one woman?

Mr. Shipley was reacting to earlier Obama administration accounts of an extended firefight at the compound, but on Wednesday, administration officials revised the narrative, saying that the only shots fired came at the beginning of the raid, from a courier.

On the first floor, the SEALs killed the courier and his brother, and the courier's wife died in crossfire.

They then swept upstairs and burst into a third floor room, entering one at a time, said White House spokesman Jay Carney. There all the U.S. intelligence, the surmising and the guesswork paid off.

Bin Laden's wife charged at the SEALs, crying her husband's name at one point. They shot her in the calf. Officials said that one SEAL grabbed a woman, fearing she might be wearing a suicide vest, and pulled her away from his team. Whether that was bin Laden's wife hasn't been confirmed.

Also in the room were bin Laden and a son. The first bullet struck bin Laden in the chest. The second struck above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull. It is unknown whether the shots came from one commando, two or in a spray of gunfire.

Yet another conflicting report. Osama was on the ground floor, captured alive then shot in front of his 12 year old daughter.

Another conflicting report: But the compound was also populated with more than two dozen children and women

A violent melee was going on, key details still largely a mystery.

(violent for the unarmed men and woman/women who were shot)

More conflicting information/details:

After the chopper crashed or was shot down, the Americans changed their plans, and apparently took away one of Bin Laden’s son.

It is amazing that with all of OBLs wealth he did not booby trap the compound or add sophisticated equipment which would have prevented the raid from taking place.

It is astonishing that the walls did not contain explosives or other EID type of devices that would have slowed down an assault.

What is most surprising is the fact that OBL had not built any tunnels or escape routes from this compound.

The two areas adjacent to the compound had courtyards that were perfect landing spots for US choppers. Who planned that?OBL should have checked the credentials of the architect more carefully.

One would have figured that there would be a lock-box or vault-room which would keep OBL safe, with an escape route to a house next door.

Living in plain site opposite a Police Station just doesn’t make sense.

Apparently the ISI had raided the complex in 2003 while it was searching for Al-Qaeda operative, Abu Faraj al-Libi. The ISI claims that it “had been sharing information with CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009″ about this compound. This seems to be validated by US Ambassador who replaced Richard Holbrooke.

THE CIA-ISI spat continues–Its head is taking pot shots at the ISI, like everyone else.
Bin Laden’s young daughter had said she saw her father shot.

The compound in Abbottabad, just 100 km (62 miles) from the capital, was raided when under construction in 2003.

There were 17-18 people in the compound at the time of the attack.

The Americans took away one person still alive, possibly a Bin Laden son.
Those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter and eight to nine other children, not apparently Bin Laden’s; all had their hands tied by the Americans.
posted by nickyskye at 10:15 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

PHOTO | AFP US President Barack Obama speaks during a re-enactment of his speech on the budget for press photographers in the Blue Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 08, 2011, after Congress reached an agreement to pass a budget.

Many reenactments featuring Bush, Cheney, etc from "A Month in the Life of George W. Bush"

Reenactment of Hilary Rodham Clinton being sworn in as US Senator

Miko, if they tell us that it's actually a photo of the US President addressing the nation then we're accepting the fact that they lie to us. In this instance it's not a problem, but if we accept it we're implicitly granting permission to lie to us on other occasions. Why not just call it a reconstruction?

Why not call it a reconstruction? Well, they are supposed to and many (most?) did. Sure, they do lie to us at times -sad but true, as a general statement, and in my view quite understandable at times. However, this isn't an incident about lying and I fail to see why it's supposed to be an issue. So if in this instance it's not a problem, why is it a problem? Or are we OK with this now and no longer see it as a problem?
posted by Miko at 10:22 PM on May 4, 2011

Nickskye: Oh, I was just pointing it out because it keeps getting mentioned in reports and nobody ever says, "Hey, you're actually talking about a building, not a wall, and it's not even all that wide."

Regarding the cannabis, I recall being noticing a sign near the Kathmandu airport once talking about the penalties for drug use. Cannabis grows (grew?) wild in the ditches along the road to the airport; I presume it grows wild in the entire region. It was a funny juxtaposition, but the taxi driver didn't want me to photograph it.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:29 PM on May 4, 2011

Cannabis grows wild throughout the United States, too.
posted by Miko at 10:30 PM on May 4, 2011

One occupant, said to be called Nadeem, left the compound every day in a red Suzuki minivan to collect supplies. Every day he returned with a goat, presumably for slaughter. No one said they had ever caught a glimpse of the 54-year-old Saudi fugitive, said to have lived on the upper two floors.

Locals said Aziz [Major Amir Aziz, an officer believed to be serving with the Pakistani army's medical corps] had lived there for many years and that his father had occupied the property before that.

>The photos don't include images of bin Laden, whose body had been hauled from the house and carried off by a U.S. helicopter perhaps as much as half hour before Pakistani troops arrived on the scene... The pictures show no weapons, though what appears to be a plastic toy gun can be seen underneath one of the men, who's lying near what seem to be computer cords.

Time stamps on two of the photos indicate they were taken at around 2:30 a.m. Monday, about an hour after the raid, which began at 12:45 a.m., had ended.

the house has 10 bedrooms, each with a kitchen and a bathroom. That arrangement would have allowed residents and guests in the house to live independently of one another, without having to congregate even for meals. Around 20 people lived in the house, including seven or more children, reports indicate.

Pakistani officials have refused to allow reporters to enter the compound where bin Laden died. Express News said it had gained entry and offered a detailed description of the layout.

There were three bedrooms on the first floor, four bedrooms on the second floor and three more bedrooms on the third floor — where U.S. officials say bin Laden was shot and killed.

>A story has been told of a woman involved in a polio vaccine drive who turned up at the hideaway with medication for the 23 children inside.

Reports also suggest a doctor had been regularly visiting the property to treat the al Qaeda leader, although these have not been confirmed.

Comparative Google pics of the compound: 2004, 2005 and 2010

One boy, 12-year-old Zarar Ahmed, told the BBC he used to visit the compound a lot, saying the family had three children - a girl and two boys.

A newspaper hawker told the BBC that he had delivered newspapers to the compound every day

two goats were delivered every week, presumably for slaughter and consumption. He also said that 10 litres of milk a day was left for the compound, adding that there were lots of children there.

After the compound was opened up to the media on Tuesday, Associated Press correspondent Nahal Toosi was tweeting her observations.

"I am in a bldg across from cpd. Looks like servants quarters. Piles of clothes, pillows on floor. Broken clock on ground. Stopped at 2:20," she reported. She also notes a mouldy lentil stew in a pot, half-eaten bread and an old television set.

Other observations abound:

BBC Urdu's Aijaz Mahar saw an area where there were a lot of medical supplies, such as antibiotics, digestive remedies and children's medicines such as Calpol

>After killing the terror leader, his son and two others, they doubled back to move nine women and 23 children away from the compound, according to U.S. officials.

So that's 4 dead men. In the Reuters pics of 3 dead men would one be OBL's sons?
posted by nickyskye at 10:53 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

According to the provided diagram of the compound, at least one segment of the outer wall was 18' high. It was adjacent to a roof with a satellite dish, so it may have been to conceal activity up there.

There's also a trellis of some type shown over the main yard adjacent to the house, which is presumably where the chopper would land. (The other large yard has some sort of fencing as for farm animals, as seem in photos, and I wonder if they kept sheep or something.)

A few news reports have said the chopper that crashed may have clipped a wall with a rotor, rather than the "hot and high" scenario mentioned a ways above. You know, I wonder if it would be possible to design your rotors for that scenario, to make a chopper more robust in these close quarter situations. Probably not, the balance is a big deal.

I just don't see any light ahead. I don't know what is to be done, and that just increases my anger and despair and frustration over us getting into this position in the first place.

marsha56, you probably want Rethink Afghanistan.

Locals said Aziz ... had lived there for many years and that his father had occupied the property before that.

Well, they may have owned the property, but I don't think Google is in on the conspiracy -- there was no house there in 2004.
posted by dhartung at 10:59 PM on May 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Re: snatch and grab, are there examples of successful missions against high value targets

You do remember the fracas about extraordinary rendition right? Yes, there are many examples but you will never hear about them from an "official" source because they are illegal according to international law.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:06 PM on May 4, 2011

marsha56, you probably want Rethink Afghanistan.

Thanks dhartung. I'll check that out. I can't sign the petition right now. I want to, but I know that nicky is partly right too. And I just don't know what the answer is. I'll look over some of the other stuff on that site and think it over. Right now, I think I need a little break from this thread. Later.
posted by marsha56 at 11:12 PM on May 4, 2011

but I don't think Google is in on the conspiracy -- there was no house there in 2004.

The point I was making was that the property was owned by the father of a Pakistani military person. And that the son, a Major Aziz, was living next door.

Another piece of property was sold by a doctor: Dr. Qazi Mahfooz Ul Haq said he sold one of the plots where Bin Laden's hideout was built to a man named Arshad Khan in 2005.
posted by nickyskye at 11:15 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Believing in the value of all human life isn't "prattish." It's the "I guess I'm the only one who cares enough about human life to feel sorry about Bin Laden's death" shtick that reeks of sanctimony. You're able to ladle a lot of compassion on a man responsible for many thousand of deaths; when you can show the same kind of compassion for the men and and women who risked their lives to kill him, for the men and women who ordered their mission, and for all of Bin Laden's victims, I might believe you mean something by it.

So the several times I stated that I believed in the sanctity of ALL human life didn't cover the people you assume I haven't shown "the same kind of compassion". Do you even know what your are talking about? As far as sanctimony goes you have no information as to my state of mind so I would kindly ask you to stop making assumptions about my intentions.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:19 PM on May 4, 2011

Seems fair to note that LobsterMitten's comment about Obama's phrasing in his initial speech, which was much debated earlier in this thread, appears to have been vindicated. I don't know and doubt we'll ever know what the exact orders were, or whether OBL was taken out execution-style, but it does appear that the President's wording was carefully considered. The firefight occurred only at the beginning of the operation, but the SEALs carried out the mission assuming they would likely encounter more resistance.
posted by torticat at 11:26 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've been scanning through your links nickyskye, thanks. It looks as if basically every detail of the event is now in question. Even internally the white house can't get it's narrative straight. My gut feeling is that this was an assassination, which at this point is just as valid an opinion as any given the plethora of contradicting reports. This is just my opinion, of course.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:27 PM on May 4, 2011

Whats up with the red snow fence.
posted by clavdivs at 11:31 PM on May 4, 2011

...Osama bin Laden’s daughter confirmed her father was captured alive and shot dead by the US Special Forces during the first few minutes of the operation...

Not exactly coming from an unbiased source, but can any source be considered unbiased in this situation?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:42 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yup, AElfwine Evenstar, the discrepancies are starting to be written about more widely now, internationally. Here's a decent collection from the Daily Mail on U.S. government's contradictory stories.

There is another bizarre botched aspect to the raid on the compound. The stealth helicopter that crashed landed there was a top secret design. When it crashed bits and pieces of it were scattered all over the place, now gathered up by local Pakistani kids and anyone there, including the Pakistani army. It is thought some of the material used to make the helicopter may find its way to China, who manufactures weapons for the Pakistani Army.
posted by nickyskye at 11:42 PM on May 4, 2011

Here's a decent collection from the Daily Mail

You may want to reconsider your decision to use the Daily Mail as a fact checking source on... well, on anything.
posted by dersins at 11:50 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

Love this tweet! > "They buried #OBL out to sea right after Japan released radioactive water into the ocean. This has the makings of an awesome monster movie"
posted by nickyskye at 11:51 PM on May 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

My gut feeling is that this was an assassination

And if it were?

This isn't an elected, de jure, or de facto leader of any sovereign territory. This isn't some gadfly publishing nothing but his dreary series of anti-American videotapes. This is the leader of an active extralegal conspiracy of war criminals. I'm completely happy with what in a traditional military strike would be classified as a decapitation. I wonder if there's ever been anyone more deserving of "assassination".

Whats up with the red snow fence.

Seems to be some sort of screen of tarp-like material erected by the Pak Army. A smaller one was used to conceal the chopper tail before it was hauled off.

It will fuel the charge that the Pakistani intelligence service the ISI effectively protected bin Laden and does not want details of links between Pakistan and Al Qaeda to see the light of day. -- Daily Mail

I'm starting to consider another possibility. clavdivs and Smedleyman and others can weigh in on this. What if the ISI turned ObL or brought him in somehow? I can't imagine they really have the leverage, other than providing his continued safety, but what if this wasn't protection so much as control? I always talk about the ISI playing the long game and waiting out the empires (I think it makes more sense than to say the ISI is in whole or part radicalized, partly because I think the profession tends to wring that sort of idealism out of a person). This could fit into that several ways. Anyway, I'm sure that the trove of finds is being analyzed not just for links "out" to al Qaeda but links "in" from benefactors and moles.
posted by dhartung at 11:54 PM on May 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

>You can presume anything you like. I'll stick to facts as presented.

So which facts are we sticking to now?

You may want to reconsider your decision to use the Daily Mail as a fact checking source on... well, on anything.

You'd have a slam dunk there except that they are not the only ones reporting these things.

And if it were?

This isn't an elected, de jure, or de facto leader of any sovereign territory. This isn't some gadfly publishing nothing but his dreary series of anti-American videotapes. This is the leader of an active extralegal conspiracy of war criminals. I'm completely happy with what in a traditional military strike would be classified as a decapitation. I wonder if there's ever been anyone more deserving of "assassination".

Well for one it's illegal and second it's immoral. We don't assassinate criminals in this country we arrest them and put them on trial according to the rule of fucking law. You know, due process. It's kinda been one of the foundational principles of civil society for the last couple of hundred years with roots reaching back to the Magna Carta. Fuck it we might as well just burn the constitution while we are at it. Hell we can use the Declaration of Independence, with its inalienable rights, as kindling.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:06 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Pakistanis were caught between a rock and a hard place. No escape. Turn in Osama and get massive, violent retaliation from all the countless fundies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, right next door. Pakistan is packed with the Taliban now. It'd be a serious mess.

Not turn in Osama and they still got arms from the USA but earned our distrust.

Our government has never trusted the Pakistani government. And they have not trusted the US. It's assumed by many that the CIA assassinated a Pakistani Prime Minister, Ali Bhutto and installed a dictator puppet, Zia ul Haq.

Would you trust a government who was thought to have assassinated your governmental leader and thought to have installed a dictator puppet?

It's assumed that Blackwater neglect and Taliban or fundie assassins murdered Ali Bhutto's daughter, another Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Either way the Pakistani government was in a bind. Double bind.
posted by nickyskye at 12:07 AM on May 5, 2011

I recall a stealth Comanche was cancelled. Helos in whisper have alot of kinetic energy, just saying. Would seem to follow if the tail section needed destroying it destroyed been done.

Love the "shot dad on the first floor" report-ok it's not a report it is fabrication.

I would model my continued existence as a terrorist by setting up a network from love not fear. Dedication. Having 1 or 7 people in the know with-in ISI would be not an easy task. Though this seems likely. Think of the Cambridge spies. They opertated on both sides and they were at almost every level of security/society there is in the U.K. One would set up lines and these would not vary. The structure was new and built for someone wealthy. Place looks normal to me even now. The military academy is a nice touch. Cadets, busy. I would like to to see what the other 68 looked like.

I doubt the ISI would just bring him in or stage a snatch. It would seem like they were shuttling him around like Howard Hughes. If it were a hit I would have others in on it like the russians or the ISI, but then it might be a showcase of thumbed flashdrives and a heated debate on bringing in the back up team for the rest of the family. "Gentleman, this is bin ladens house, you can't steal intelligence!"

He would have needed somone from JSIB and JIX and The Musa at the least. The ISI put dr. khan in the dy-100 house arrest and he was peddling some serious hardware. I get the waiting out empires but the tensions with India have not eased a great deal and continued US/NATO drone attacks coupled with thier own legitimate concerns of ridding the most violent terrorists puts a damper on any game that might be played and lets face, they wont use them nukes, they most likely would not reach target and dirty dealing is going to leave a trace and you know what that means, "neighbors and friends of neighbors".
posted by clavdivs at 12:47 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

"My gut feeling is that this was an assassination"

My gut feeling is that a cup of tea sounds nice. That said, my gut doesn't provide any real insight in to what happens in this world. Facts do. Probability. Occam's Razor. Things like that, really.

Here are the questions I would ask myself, in order to determine the likelihood of this being an intentional assassination attempt:

1> If the goal was purely to kill OBL, why send in ground troops? Why not just bomb?
2> Why is it that some of the people in OBL's compound got off unharmed, while others were shot non-lethally and left for Pakistani authorities, and others were killed?!
3> Just because OBL was shot and killed, why should we assume this to be a government-planned assassination attempt, as opposed to a reaction to a believed threat -- reports are that OBL was in a room with multiple weapons, and was reportedly reaching towards a nearby weapon. There's also the real possibility that a soldier with a grudge against OBL might exceed their orders, or intentionally exaggerate the threat, so as to justify their killing OBL.

Given all those options, it's hard to say what happened, frankly.
posted by markkraft at 1:00 AM on May 5, 2011

Markkraft asked: If the goal was purely to kill OBL, why send in ground troops? Why not just bomb?

These questions would be better directed at your government, but I'll take a shot.

Perhaps they really couldn't get away with bombing a house in a wealthy Pakistani suburb, particularly one with nearly two dozen residents. Frankly, I don't think the USA would have any friends left anywhere after doing something like that.

Why is it that some of the people in OBL's compound got off unharmed, while others were shot non-lethally and left for Pakistani authorities, and others were killed?!

Perhaps only people who were in the way or who appeared threatening were killed? Perhaps they stopped shooting once they had the place secured? This is really something that you would have to ask your government.

Just because OBL was shot and killed, why should we assume this to be a government-planned assassination attempt, as opposed to a reaction to a believed threat [...]

Because officials of your government have described it as a "kill" mission; because John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism chief, said that bin Laden would only have been allowed to surrender "if he did not pose any type of threat whatsoever"; because a senior Congressional Aide clarified that bin Laden "would have had to have been naked for them to allow him to surrender"; and because CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on PBS television Tuesday that he did not believe Bin Laden had a chance to speak before he was shot in the face and killed. All quotes taken from this article.

reports are that OBL was in a room with multiple weapons, and was reportedly reaching towards a nearby weapon.

This is the third or fourth contradictory account from your government. Why should I believe this one rather than the one which said he was firing an AK-47, or the one which said he was unarmed, or the one which said that he didn't even have time to speak?
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:56 AM on May 5, 2011

Because officials of your government have described it as a "kill" mission; because John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism chief, said that bin Laden would only have been allowed to surrender "if he did not pose any type of threat whatsoever"; because a senior Congressional Aide clarified that bin Laden "would have had to have been naked for them to allow him to surrender"; and because CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on PBS television Tuesday that he did not believe Bin Laden had a chance to speak before he was shot in the face and killed. All quotes taken from this article.

So we're believing the government in this case, eh?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ooh. An Australian is mad!

OBL is dead. He was a world class mass murderer. Morality debates are very nice. Some of you are so smart!
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:57 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Poet_lariat: "Yesterday, when I heard the reactions to the news at the gates of the White House and in various places across America today I immediately thought of this"

Well, that's a pretty terrible analogy.

The two minute hate is an organized, scheduled session of agitprop using fictitious, nonexistent enemies as targets so as to externalize their dissatisfaction with being an oppressed class in a totalitarian police state.

Are you implying that:

a) Osama bin Laden was fictitious?
b) the jingoistic sheeple have daily street carnivals celebrating dead muslims?
c) Bush prosecuted the War on Terror to distract the public from domestic issues, and it all came to fruition 10 years thence when the secret muslim Kenyan president sent a kill team after Osama?

I'm actually quite sure you're inclined to agree with the first half of C. The second half, as I hope you can tell, is satire. Even if the Republican rhetoric concerning Al Qaeda was used solely as an excuse for Middle Eastern adventurism, how in the world does Obama's administration actually killing Emmanuel Goldstein for good make this situation in any way analogous to the two minute hate?
posted by unigolyn at 3:50 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

This all reminds me a lot of the days and weeks after 911. At the time, I was working at a leftist newspaper, and saw the second plane crash on live television in the newsroom. Naturally, I was shocked, and worried for my friends in lower Manhattan. But within a day, our communication board was seeming with anti-americanism and conspiracy-theories. It was crazy. The fights were huge, and friendships ended those days. The poor editors struggled to keep all the crap off of the pages.
A huge number of my colleagues spent hours and hours trying to explain how flying planes into WTC and Pentagon was completely insignificant, and anyway, "a good thing".
Even crazier: those who were worst when it came to hating Americans and believing conspiracies during the those first days were also first when it came to falling for all the lousy anti-taliban propaganda, a month later. At some point I threatened to quit my job if we brought just one other syndicated article about how Afghan women could now visit beauty salons. Humanity...

I've come to believe it is all about loss of control. When something unusual and scary happens, something which dramatically changes the world order, some people need to regain their sense of control by conjuring up some sort of narrative or explanation, however impossible this may be. And it is impossible, because two days after an event like this, there is no way we can figure out what really happened, or what the different actors intended. And while I commend the reporters who are searching for bits of data, and the analysts who are trying to piece the data together, we also have to understand that our opinions on this issue never can be entirely based on the truth. There is no available finite truth. We have to decide wether we trust the American president more or less than the ISI. We have to decide wether this is a good or bad decision in the process towards ending the wars, based on our understanding of the world.

Now, while I do understand that others can see the world differently, based on different political or philosophical points of departure, I cannot help seeing those who base their world view on conspiracy theories as a little silly. I am seldom inclined to listen to what they have to say. But that is just one point of view...
posted by mumimor at 3:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [8 favorites]

OBL is dead. He was a world class mass murderer.

No, he was not a murderer, at least not that I've ever heard.

He may or may not have been involved in conspiracy to murder, which is a different - if related - thing.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:13 AM on May 5, 2011

Adding to this joyous moment in history, former President Bush killed the gopher who was terrorizing his backyard.
posted by gman at 4:18 AM on May 5, 2011

Adding to this joyous moment in history, former President Bush killed the gopher who was terrorizing his backyard.

It's like a golden age of righteous assassinations. Never before have I felt so safe.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:37 AM on May 5, 2011

He may or may not have been involved in conspiracy to murder, which is a different - if related - thing.

Right. Just like President Obama may or may not have been born in the US. And astronauts may or may not have landed on the moon. There are certain tests of maturity and seriousness in political discussions, and this is one of them.

And I'm not sure I understand your moral point. Are you arguing that there is a significant moral distinction between heading a murderous conspiracy and committing the act oneself?
posted by BobbyVan at 4:38 AM on May 5, 2011

At 1:20 pm ET — Obama participates in wreath-laying ceremony — President Obama attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the 9/11 memorial in New York.
posted by cashman at 4:54 AM on May 5, 2011

They guy was the leader of an organization that is famous for killing people with explosives. If it was me, and UBL's pinkie so much as twitched...
posted by rosswald at 5:18 AM on May 5, 2011

But I'm not seeing that we are making any kind of progress. We certainly owe it to them to do whatever we can to help them fix their country. But, I don't know if we are capable of doing that. I don't know if there is the political will to make that our primary reason for being there. I know that Powell's "You break it, you bought it" is true.

Actually, we are doing better in Afghanistan now than we have in 8 years. Last year we swept through the Taliban heartland of Khandahar much quicker than anyone expected. The Taliban had a whole set of bunkers west of the city that were supposed to trap us, but we used some sort of new, super guided rocket we could fire from Bagram airbase outside Kabul and they were on the run. The big tell was that villagers were no longer burying the Taliban dead and started to participate in local governmenr. This year more areas were under Kabul's control since the early days of the war. John Burns of the NYT has had excellent reporting on this.

Having said this, I don't think 'you break it, you buy it' applies. State-sponsored terrorists from that country, who were ensconced in their government, launched a devistating attack on our soil. We did not owe them what we owed Iraq.

We do need to help them to help ourselves, though. The hope is that once the Pakistani government realizes that their billions are in trouble, they will bring the Haqqani network to the table. That Frontline episode was devistating and showed the Pakistani government was complicit in this.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:11 AM on May 5, 2011

He may or may not have been involved in conspiracy to murder, which is a different - if related - thing.

He was indicted for murder long ago. He was the number one US fugitive. It means not a whit to this analysis if he refused to surrender, made a threatening lunge and was shot.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:16 AM on May 5, 2011

As near as I can tell, John Brennan should not be allowed to be a speaking source for the Obama administration. He may be great at his anti-terrorism job, but he appears to be really anxious to tell a good story, instead of getting the facts right. And that sort of thing never works out for anyone.
posted by dglynn at 6:16 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

mumimor, I think you nailed it in this comment. That's what I'm starting to see going on around us, and I'm not much interested in being part of it. To this day there are still little knots of people sitting around in 9/11 "questions committees," each with their own daft take on the events and each with their sheaf of papers of facts, inconsistencies, and conflicting reports. It doesn't add up to much.

I am sure we will continue to get clearer and more refined accounts of these events, especially when some long-form material researched over a longer timeline can be put together. I am sure we will discover that some reports were quite misleading and in error and some people rushed to create accounts without full verification and that some people were just plain full of shit, as usual. However, I think that apart from that kind of journalism I'm kind of done thinking it's productive to track the minutiae, especially when they are in no way weighted as to quanitity of evidence and quality of source. It's hard to see why this process should matter outside the hands of people who can apply truly informed analysis. Most of us can do nothing but make hash out of it and then point to the big pile of hash and say "See? See?!" That's not all that helpful. We can assemble facts, reports, and opinions, but until they are assembled in a meaningful, accurate, and comprehensive narrative by someone who can put them into context, they are not informative. And we may need to accept that this is one of those happenings about which we are unlikely to be able to find out the full truth, at least in the near future.

What seems to be most widely agreed upon is that the US government has deployed its military in an action in Pakistan, and as a result of this activity the US has the confidence to unequivocally state that Osama bin Laden is no longer able to fund or direct terrorist actions. That is the major takeaway, and I'm not so terribly concerned about the details unless we learn that they are much, much worse in terms of collateral damage than we know of now, or created much more international relations risk for the US than it appears now.

A significant leader and hub of an international criminal conspiracy is out of power, that organization may now be in greater disarray, and the US has demonstrated to the world that it can find and remove a sworn enemy of its state and others, who has admittedly follwed a program of plotting to take the lives of civilians unprovoked and outside the path of war. It's not pretty but I certainly believe it's just.

It's possible to spend a great deal of one's time, emotional energy, and intellectual effort combing through details - but I've determined that whatever happened in the bin Laden compound, ugly as it was, is not, on the global scale and given all of our other serious problems., the place where I want to shed my tears, expend my inquisitive forces, conduct my research or undertake my activism. I've never been of the opinion that everything people in government know should be known by every citizen, and I'm not now. I'm sure there's a lot we don't know, and in this case, that's probably for the best. There are many serious issues before us and I view bin Laden conspiracy theorizing, as I do 9/11 conspiracy theorizing, a distraction.
posted by Miko at 6:19 AM on May 5, 2011 [9 favorites]

"He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

- Frodo and Gandalf discussing Gollum
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:26 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Your arguments would make a little sense if you didn't try to bolster them with a scene from a story.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:29 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Miko, what I find fascinating is what this tells us about us. Not just here, but nationwide, eveeryone just injected their own view of the world into the few tidbits there. An event like this seems to reinforce our narratives, not change them. From GOPers saying "torture works" to the far left saying this was an evil act, we all just said the same things we've been saying.

The final thing is that it is becoming clear that if Barack Obama says he's gonna do something, he will do it. I had remembered Obama saying these things during the campaign and I remember agreeing with the position. But it was downright eerie to watch him say it, and watch McCain, Clinton and the rest of the poitical class loudly oppose him for it.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:31 AM on May 5, 2011

Little is known about what may be the nation’s most courageous dog. Even its breed is the subject of great interest, although it was most likely a German shepherd or a Belgian Malinois, military sources say. But its use in the raid reflects the military’s growing dependence on dogs in wars in which improvised explosive devices have caused two-thirds of all casualties. Dogs have proved far better than people or machines at quickly finding bombs.
posted by rosswald at 6:31 AM on May 5, 2011

But Osama bin Laden was also controlled by the power of a magical ring!
posted by inigo2 at 6:32 AM on May 5, 2011

McCain: Waterboarding didn't help.

Is Anti-Torture John McCain back at long last?
posted by Jugwine at 6:33 AM on May 5, 2011

- Frodo and Gandalf discussing Gollum

Seriously?
posted by OmieWise at 6:33 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Little is known about what may be the nation’s most courageous dog.

Yet another reason dogs are better than cats. You know the cat would have switched sides for bowl of wet food.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:34 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Your arguments would make a little sense if you didn't try to bolster them with a scene from a story.

Because truth can only be found in media accounts of controversial events, amirite?

Seriously?

Yes seriously, I suggest you read the Lord of the Rings. It's a great morality play about the corrupting character of power and lust for control over others.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:37 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

I believe that the official story probably conforms to objective reality probably 90 or 95 percent on this one. I think we (we meaning the USA) look OK, but not great. I just wanted to get that out of the way and on the record because, like getting a song caught in your head, I've been thinking all morning about this all as Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf, with George W. Bush as Martha, and Barack Obama as George, and Osama Bin Laden as their son.

Obviously it doesn't make a lick of sense, but, you know, that never stopped anyone from mentioning something on the internet before.
posted by dirtdirt at 6:39 AM on May 5, 2011

For heaven's sake, practically everyone's read the Lord of the Rings. It's not a lack of familiarity causing the raised eyebrows.

The final thing is that it is becoming clear that if Barack Obama says he's gonna do something, he will do it. I had remembered Obama saying these things during the campaign and I remember agreeing with the position. But it was downright eerie to watch him say it, and watch McCain, Clinton and the rest of the poitical class loudly oppose him for it.

Yes, that is interesting to reflect on. I just listened to a set of those clips from the Presidential debates - he certainly pulled no punches that this would be his approach - and now that the day has come to pass (with Clinton's help, of course) we do need to remember that the idea of the project shouldn't seem like a surprise to us.
posted by Miko at 6:41 AM on May 5, 2011

Because truth can only be found in media accounts of controversial events, amirite?

I was thinking reality, actually.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:44 AM on May 5, 2011

October 7, 2008.
posted by Miko at 6:49 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is philosophy reality? No it's mental images, representations, and thought experiments that we use to attempt to understand reality. Most moral systems are based on philosophical foundations. Tolkien used the LOTR as a vehicle for his philosophical views on morality and the problem of evil. The fact that people don't take it seriously is of no concern to me as it illustrates the futility of further interaction with feeble intellects. Good day and have fun with the celebration of death.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 6:50 AM on May 5, 2011

The fact that people don't take it seriously is of no concern to me as it illustrates the futility of further interaction with feeble intellects.

You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

October 7, 2008.

I had totally forgotten about this, but in college I lived down the hall from the blonde guy in the back row of that video. Not that that's even remotely relevant.
posted by phunniemee at 6:58 AM on May 5, 2011

The final thing is that it is becoming clear that if Barack Obama says he's gonna do something, he will do it.

Except close Gitmo, end indefinite detentions, try KSM in federal court, etc.

I'm glad he took out OBL, but not for the same reasons as Pres. Obama. Pres. Obama, I think, would prefer to kill terrorist enemies using drones or special forces, than to capture them, so he can avoid becoming mired even deeper in the dilemmas that Pres. Bush faced over detention and interrogation policies (i.e., "the dark side").

Early in his Presidential campaign, Pres. Obama suggested that Bin Laden be tried in a Nuremberg-style proceeding. Later, he and his Administration decided that killing Bin Laden was the only feasible option.

Driving home this political calculation, Pres. Obama took important lessons from the mirandizing of the Detroit underwear bomber and the snafu over trying KSM in New York. As risky as the mission to hunt Bin Laden in Abbottabad might have been, having custody of a live Bin Laden and wrestling with the decision of whether to give him a lawyer posed even greater political risks for Pres. Obama.

An OBL trial would have divided the country, and any fallout from the trial would accrue to Obama's political detriment. But if Obama sent OBL to a "black site" and denied him legal counsel, Obama would effectively become Bush 2.0 -- and completely alienate his base. Better to have the SEALs double-tap the guy and chalk it all up to the "fog of war".
posted by BobbyVan at 6:58 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

metafilter: it illustrates the futility of further interaction with feeble intellects.
posted by empath at 6:59 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

it illustrates the futility of further interaction with feeble intellects

May I recommend Scott Adams' blog?
posted by Miko at 7:00 AM on May 5, 2011 [11 favorites]

Is philosophy reality? No it's mental images, representations, and thought experiments that we use to attempt to understand reality.

Bin Laden had a philosophy too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:00 AM on May 5, 2011

I also keep coming back to what the reaction would have been if the President had decided to go along with the recommendation to send some B-2's and blow up the whole block with 2000 lb. JDAM's.

If we did that, would it have been justifiable?

Walking right up to bin Laden and putting a bullet in his head is no different, but I bet the neighbors would prefer that to a rain of bombs.
posted by dglynn at 7:02 AM on May 5, 2011

metafilter: deeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Texts that have serious philosophical ideas in them are not to be taken seriously because I can score points in my quest to justify my nation states actions.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:07 AM on May 5, 2011

Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.

I think the real revelation here is the Obama uses a teleprompter!

Fuck it we might as well just burn the constitution while we are at it. Hell we can use the Declaration of Independence, with its inalienable rights, as kindling.

I am beginning to suspect that you like teh drama. Look, way upthread you already took a grim satisfaction in the Republic's "rottenness"; you don't believe anything stated by the government can or should be taken as true, apparently; and you're doubtful that anything can be done to change this other than to wait for the evolution of a non-violent human species. If all of this is true, then why are you surprised by any of it? And why aren't you just "enjoying the show" like said you were going to? Your attitude seems to be one of "The US government is deeply corrupt and untrustworthy and I am appalled that they killed their #1 one enemy!"

feeble intellects

Oh, man. Don't go away angry.

Except close Gitmo, end indefinite detentions, try KSM in federal court, etc.

You almost seem disappointed.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:09 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Every time I see this thread in my Recent Activity my "Someone Is Wrong on the Internet" reflex starts twitching like crazy. And I see that all the people who are *totally wrong* are having a similar problem.

I wonder what Gandalf would have to say about this.
posted by gerryblog at 7:09 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Bobby Van, Congress stopped him from closing Gitmo with veto-proof mega-majorities and then threatened to cut funds to transfer KSM to federal court. Even Bloomberg backed down when he saw the polling numbers. Obama still wants to close Gitmo, but he lacks Congressional and public support. The public, in their stupidity, opposes closing it in large numbers.

More importantly, where he's been largely stymied is where Bush left a giant mess that is impossible to clean up. Barack Obama didn't open Gitmo, didn't torture KSM and didn't create any of these messes. And the only place he's been actually for continuing Bush's foreign policy, Afghanistan and Pakistan, he's done a much better job, clearing out the Taliban, putting pressure on the Pakistanis, and now, bringing bin Laden to justice.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:10 AM on May 5, 2011 [7 favorites]

Yes seriously, I suggest you read the Lord of the Rings. It's a great morality play about the corrupting character of power and lust for control over others.

Do you also feel that Sauron should have been spared? Possibly checked into the Houses of the Healing at Gondor and given some pipeweed to chill him out a bit?

LOTR does say some things about how power can corrupt. But it also says some things about how there are indeed times when doing difficult and possibly horrible things for the sake of bettering the world overall is absolutely vital.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:14 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes seriously, I suggest you read the Lord of the Rings. It's a great morality play about the corrupting character of power and lust for control over others.

I thought that was Bored of the Rings:

"Do you like what you doth see...?" said the voluptuous elf-maiden as she provocatively parted the folds of her robe to reveal the rounded, shadowy glories within. Frito's throat was dry, though his head reeled with desire and ale.

posted by kirkaracha at 7:16 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am beginning to suspect that you like teh drama. Look, way upthread you already took a grim satisfaction in the Republic's "rottenness"; you don't believe anything stated by the government can or should be taken as true, apparently; and you're doubtful that anything can be done to change this other than to wait for the evolution of a non-violent human species. If all of this is true, then why are you surprised by any of it? And why aren't you just "enjoying the show" like said you were going to? Your attitude seems to be one of "The US government is deeply corrupt and untrustworthy and I am appalled that they killed their #1 one enemy!"

Are there any serious arguments or critiques here? No? Just strawmen and innuendo? Ok thanks for playing. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Oh, man. Don't go away angry.

I ain't mad atcha... or anybody else for that matter. Disappointed, yes. But I'm sure y'all will be able to live with yourselves know that AElfwine Evenstar is disappointed. So I really must show some self restraint and bow out because at this point all I'll really be doing is repeating myself and everything that needs to be said has already been said up thread so carry on with the celebration.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:19 AM on May 5, 2011

The fact that people don't take it seriously is of no concern to me as it illustrates the futility of further interaction with feeble intellects. Good day and have fun with the celebration of death.

Aaaaand flame out.
posted by Aquaman at 7:21 AM on May 5, 2011

McCain: Waterboarding didn't help.

Is Anti-Torture John McCain back at long last?

There is also this from the article, regarding the photos:

"McCain told reporters he did not think the photograph needed to be released. “My initial opinion is that it’s not necessary to do so. I think there’s ample proof that this was Osama bin Laden,” said McCain, a Vietnam War veteran."
posted by cashman at 7:23 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

so carry on with the celebration.

I know my intellect is feeble, but I don't see much celebrating in this thread, certainly not at this point. Saying that it's good Bin Laden is dead, and that the behavior of the government/sailors/military was acceptable and even justified, does not constitute celebration. Serious people can be satisfied with this result without feeling like it's the best of possible situations. Serious moral reasoning, filtered through philosophy or fiction, should be able to admit to this.
posted by OmieWise at 7:26 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Do you also feel that Sauron should have been spared?

Sauron serves several purposes to the plot. As far as Tolkien's development of his thoughts on the problem of evil he is actually unimportant. The ring itself, not Sauron, embodies evil and it's influence on the real world.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:28 AM on May 5, 2011

Do you also feel that Sauron should have been spared?

I don't expect that this line of argument will be particularly fruitful.
posted by empath at 7:31 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Congress stopped him from closing Gitmo with veto-proof mega-majorities and then threatened to cut funds to transfer KSM to federal court. Even Bloomberg backed down when he saw the polling numbers. Obama still wants to close Gitmo, but he lacks Congressional and public support. The public, in their stupidity, opposes closing it in large numbers.

All that you mention above was completely foreseeable when Obama made these promises, which certainly doesn't excuse him from failing to deliver on them. So unless you think Obama's stupid, the reasonable conclusion is that he made those promises to appease a base that was pretty far out of line with the "stupid" public.

You're correct that Obama did not open Gitmo and did not torture KSM. But even critics of "enhanced interrogation" must concede that the intel that led to OBL came from interrogations in "black sites" conducted without the presence of legal counsel.

For the record, I think President Obama would have implemented many of the same detention and interrogation policies as President Bush, only he would have been less honest about them (to spare his political base the horrors that necessity can tragically impose). Once word of Obama's policies leaked, Republicans would probably have criticized him for them, wrongly (just like the GOP criticized Bill Clinton's reasonable anti-terror measures following the OKC bombing, as well as Clinton's intervention in Bosnia...).
posted by BobbyVan at 7:31 AM on May 5, 2011

but I don't see much celebrating in this thread

Look harder. I guess you are correct that the jubilation has mostly given way to backslapping and handshaking at this point.

Serious people can be satisfied with this result without feeling like it's the best of possible situations.

Agreed. Serious people can also not be satisfied with this result and have serious moral problem with it.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:33 AM on May 5, 2011

Keeping Gollum alive turns out to be "good" because when the crucial moment comes Frodo is unable to destroy the ring himself -- at which time Gollum betrays Frodo, grabs the ring for himself, and then trips and falls into the lava. It's a bit hard to see what the real-life parallel would be if bin Laden had been kept alive.

I should also add that I'm aghast to see pro-Sauron apologetics on this site. From an Elf, no less!
posted by gerryblog at 7:36 AM on May 5, 2011 [5 favorites]

Big_B writes "More telling in that report to me is the item regarding electrical service being cut off, which we heard about before and someone was saying isn't too uncommon, but they mention that cell service went out also. EMP anyone?"

I think we'd know if an EMP burst took out a cell tower. Even if cell service was interrupted it is wildly more likely that either it was a regular infrastructure problem, a $100 black box cell jammer, or a crowbar and sawzall that took service out.
posted by Mitheral at 7:37 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

So.. that's a yes?

No that's a Sauron is not an entity to be spared or killed, but whose fate is driven by Tolkien's mythology not his morality play.

Keeping Gollum alive turns out to be "good" because when the crucial moment comes Frodo is unable to destroy the ring himself -- at which time Gollum betrays Frodo, grabs the ring for himself, and then trips and falls into the lava. It's a bit hard to see what the real-life parallel would be if bin Laden had been kept alive.

Well at this point we'll never know will we. I also don't think the point was that every detail in the novel should parallel reality.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:41 AM on May 5, 2011

As far as Tolkien's development of his thoughts on the problem of evil he is actually unimportant. The ring itself, not Sauron, embodies evil and it's influence on the real world...

Using Lord of the Rings to illuminate the secret truth behind Obama's realpolitik? Now that's literally trolling!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:43 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Could we perhaps just route around this thread bombadilling?
posted by Aquaman at 7:44 AM on May 5, 2011 [6 favorites]

You're correct that Obama did not open Gitmo and did not torture KSM. But even critics of "enhanced interrogation" must concede that the intel that led to OBL came from interrogations in "black sites" conducted without the presence of legal counsel.

Critics of torture, you mean. The rest of your paragraph seems to be based on wishful thinking.

For the record, I think President Obama would have implemented many of the same detention and interrogation policies as President Bush, only he would have been less honest about them (to spare his political base the horrors that necessity can tragically impose). Once word of Obama's policies leaked, Republicans would probably have criticized him for them, wrongly (just like the GOP criticized Bill Clinton's reasonable anti-terror measures following the OKC bombing, as well as Clinton's intervention in Bosnia...).
posted by BobbyVan

Well, it's certainly an opinion.
posted by faineant at 7:45 AM on May 5, 2011

nickyskye writes "Am bothered by all the inconsistencies and discrepancies. Certainly the local people around the compound don't believe OBL was in that house."

People in this country regularly don't realize the house next door is literally full of growing pot plants. If he never exposed himself to public view and the few people who did never spoke his name how are the people living around there supposed to know? Really this is one of the least surprising things about whole affair.

nickyskye writes "Living in plain site opposite a Police Station just doesn’t make sense."

It makes a lot of sense actually. bin Laden would have wanted to live in a relatively safe neighbourhood; one of the big fears you have when hiding out like this is that some random punk is going to stumble upon you in your hideout while lifting your TV. It's why grow ops are in goo neighbourhoods (that and nicer house tend to have better electrical infrastructure).

nickyskye writes "The pictures show no weapons, "

It would seem normal for security reasons not to leave weapons lying next to the bodies.

nickyskye writes "There is another bizarre botched aspect to the raid on the compound. The stealth helicopter that crashed landed there was a top secret design. When it crashed bits and pieces of it were scattered all over the place, now gathered up by local Pakistani kids and anyone there, including the Pakistani army. It is thought some of the material used to make the helicopter may find its way to China, who manufactures weapons for the Pakistani Army."

The actual materials might not be secret. And really what's the other option? The US would have had to secure the compound long enough to bring in teams to cut up and load the pieces onto choppers in order to stop the pieces from falling into the control of Pakistan. Heck, rumours about the boom being sent to China notwithstanding, they could just offer to buy the pieces from Pakistan. A blown up stealth helicopter is probably worth a new Blackhawk or two to both sides and it's not like there is any secret who the helicopter belonged to.

markkraft writes "1> If the goal was purely to kill OBL, why send in ground troops? Why not just bomb?"

In order to verify the capture/kill. People even in this thread are questioning his death. It's not hard to see that a bomb that reduced him to pulp would have spawned Elvis lives style OBL stories for decades to come.
posted by Mitheral at 7:47 AM on May 5, 2011

Now that's literally trolling!

Does that mean that when the first rays of the rising sun hit my computer monitor the thread will turn to stone?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 7:49 AM on May 5, 2011

Serious people can also not be satisfied with this result and have serious moral problem with it.

...but serious people don't derail conversations about the intersection of current events, international policy, and individual morality into discussions of their opinions on fantasy fiction, nor do they assert that those who don't share their views are feeble-minded (on preview, I see you're pretending that's not such an insult; good one). Serious people don't insult people as they flounce out the door and then return minutes later with more derail.

Serious people are careful with their apostrophes.

Serious people would shut the fuck up if they were you.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:49 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

BobbyVan writes "An OBL trial would have divided the country, and any fallout from the trial would accrue to Obama's political detriment. But if Obama sent OBL to a 'black site' and denied him legal counsel, Obama would effectively become Bush 2.0 -- and completely alienate his base. Better to have the SEALs double-tap the guy and chalk it all up to the 'fog of war'."

Interestingly to me my DM has been beating us with this stick for the last six months or so by having medium level monsters surrender to us. For good characters it a serious dilemma. You can't just kill prisoners; taking them back to town and authorities allows the dungeon to restock, granting parole allows them to stab you in the back, tieing them up and abandoning them is just a creul form of killing them and dragging them along is a logistical nightmare that interferes with your ability to Get. The. Job. Done. I fixed it by playing a Gnoll who views other inteligent species like Japanese dolphin fishermen view dolphins but that is not really an option Obama can exercise.
posted by Mitheral at 7:51 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Are there any serious arguments or critiques here? No? Just strawmen and innuendo?

I'm wasn't making an argument, I was asking a question and I was trying to be (reasonably) gentle about it. The question is: Why, if you think the republic is so "rotten," the government so determined to lie about everything, and politics so hopeless, are you at all surprised by any of this? You've been making a rousing defense of a violent man based on the ideals of a country that you, apparently, believe is corrupt and deceitful. That doesn't seem odd to you?

Say what you will about pacifism, it's a lovely ethos. But if want to say that Bin Laden should've been spared, then you pretty much need to endorse a strong variety of pacifism.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:52 AM on May 5, 2011

Hardly.

No, exactly. You were making some good points and standing up for a high moral issue earlier. Kudos.

But then you called everyone "feeble-minded" and announced you were taking your ball and going home. That's a textbook flameout.

Then you came back.
posted by Aquaman at 7:52 AM on May 5, 2011

came from interrogations in "black sites" conducted without the presence of legal counsel.

I'm actually kind of okay with interrogating terrorists without legal counsel. I'm less okay with putting them in secret prisons, but I could perhaps be persuaded that it's okay temporarily.

But institutionalizing those sorts of things and holding people long term, and torturing them, with no trial is where I draw the line.
posted by empath at 7:55 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

i think we should have put osama to bed with camomile tea just like peter rabbit's mother did
posted by pyramid termite at 7:55 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

I also don't think the point was that every detail in the novel should parallel reality.

It's almost like you're saying that we shouldn't look to Lord of the Rings for advice on what to do about bin Laden.

The fact that people are so blinded by nationalism that they would disregard a work of art as an avenue to truth is extremely disturbing to me.

If this is trolling, it is a work of art. If it's not trolling, and you're motivated by genuine pacifistic conviction of a kind that far exceeds anything the heroes do in Lord of the Rings, you should know you're putting forth a false dilemma. It is not the case that people are *either* blinded by nationalism *or* agree with you 100%. There are other possibilities. People of good heart can come to different conclusions about both the circumstances of bin Laden's death and the morality of it. It's not that you're smart, strong, and far-seeing, and we're all stupid, weak, and blind. Play nice.
posted by gerryblog at 7:57 AM on May 5, 2011

Want to call everyone stupid? Go to MetaTalk, making a giant thread all about you is unseemly and needs to stop. Thank you.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:06 AM on May 5, 2011 [6 favorites]

Mostly, I just want my brother to come home. He's on active duty in Afghanistan, having spent half the last decade on 4 missions to the region (3 to Afghanistan, 1 to Kuwait, Iraq, and Egypt). He's 42 years old and has a 6-month-old daughter he got to meet briefly after she was born.

I know this doesn't suddenly mean the wars are over, our civil liberties are being restored, and we can go back to living like peacetime, but I surely wish that were the case.

As far as taking out bin Laden this way, I can't help thinking that surgical strikes like this, while they may be questionable in terms of sovereignty, show both a lot more compassion and a lot more power than Bush's chosen approach -- all-out war, "shock and awe," many thousands of civilian deaths.

Had Bush pressed U.S. agencies to find bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders and taking them out individually and given them the resources to do so (instead of declaring he wasn't worried about bin Laden and shutting down the CIA group tasked with finding him), we likely a) wouldn't be at war in multiple theaters now, b) wouldn't have alienated the rest of the world nearly so much, c) wouldn't have the many thousands of civilian deaths on our hands, much less the thousands of combatants, and d) would (I think) look a lot better for having the option to blow up everybody and everything but choosing instead to use our intelligence gathering and analysis skills to take out the direct threats, with absolutely minimal damage to noncombatants.
posted by notashroom at 8:09 AM on May 5, 2011 [8 favorites]

Why, if you think the republic is so "rotten," the government so determined to lie about
everything, and politics so hopeless, are you at all surprised by any of this?

Who says I'm surprised?

You've been making a rousing defense of a violent man based on the ideals of a country that you, apparently, believe is corrupt and deceitful. That doesn't seem odd to you?

Not really given that the ideals of the U.S.A. are not corrupt and deceitful.

Say what you will about pacifism, it's a lovely ethos. But if want to say that Bin Laden should've been spared, then you pretty much need to endorse a strong variety of pacifism.

Who says I'm a pacifist? I believe that to survive we have to as a species eventually evolve some form of non violent society, but as far as the here and now I am perfectly fine with self defense. The arguments I was making up thread were in the context of my views on moving towards a society where we don't use violence as a means of solving differences. I know part of the blame lies with me as I clearly haven't explained my position to your satisfaction.

This being said I think self defense is a hard case to make in this context. Where's the immediate danger/threat? The Seals could have easily captured him alive and returned him to the U.S. for trial. The argument that the seals had to shoot to protect the team is kinda not really convincing to me as our military has planned and executed snatch and grabs of high value targets before. Soldiers will obviously do as much as they can to protect their teammates, but the mission is more important than the individual. If given the mission to capture Osama alive I am confident the Seals could and would have done so. The fact that the order was dead or alive illustrates, at least to me, that there was never a plan to bring him back to the U.S. for trial and that death was the preferred outcome.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:11 AM on May 5, 2011

AElfwine Evenstar: Is philosophy reality? No it's mental images, representations, and thought experiments that we use to attempt to understand reality. Most moral systems are based on philosophical foundations. Tolkien used the LOTR as a vehicle for his philosophical views on morality and the problem of evil. The fact that people don't take it seriously is of no concern to me as it illustrates the futility of further interaction with feeble intellects. Good day and have fun with the celebration of death.

If you're finding yourself incapable of discussing a topic without attacking people who disagree with you then perhaps it's time to take a walk. Get some fresh air. Come back when you're less angry.
posted by zarq at 8:11 AM on May 5, 2011

I'm actually kind of okay with interrogating terrorists without legal counsel. I'm less okay with putting them in secret prisons, but I could perhaps be persuaded that it's okay temporarily.

But institutionalizing those sorts of things and holding people long term, and torturing them, with no trial is where I draw the line.

Now we're getting somewhere!

I'm OK w/ the periodic reviews that Obama has implemented for Gitmo detainees, and with the military trials that Obama is proceeding with. The secret prisons could never be a long-term practical solution (someone was bound to leak it sooner or later).

I also think that waterboarding the 3 baddest AQ members to force them to comply wasn't the worst thing in the world. Note the quote in my comment above.

Waterboarding was not an interrogation method. It was a way of forcing compliance. They asked questions they knew the answers to, and determined which information KSM/Al-Libbi would fight the hardest to protect. That's how they knew what information was valuable, and where to focus the later "standard" interrogations.

Now, I concede that the PR fallout from waterboarding was very serious, and may have caused damage to US security that outweighed any benefits that were gained from it. That's a practical objection that must be considered going forward. But philosophically, it's not out of the realm of consideration for me in extreme situations.

So if all we're left with is waterboarding (which the Bush Admin stopped long before Obama took office), I think we've made some real progress here.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:13 AM on May 5, 2011

The Seals could have easily captured him alive and returned him to the U.S. for trial.

You say this as if you know what you're talking about.
posted by rtha at 8:18 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Waterboarding was not an interrogation method. It was a way of forcing compliance

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

The torture will always invent some kind of justification for why he has to do it, but it's never the real reason. Torturer's torture because its who they are. We had some truly vile people in charge of this country for eight years, and a lot of politicians who should have known better but were too scared to oppose them. I don't know who is worse.
posted by empath at 8:19 AM on May 5, 2011

Want to call everyone stupid?

Didn't call everyone stupid. I was called an equivalent term upthread. Didn't see you intervening there. I even flagged it. But I guess I am, as you say, making it about me so I shall follow your advice. Adios muchachos.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:19 AM on May 5, 2011

NYT link

[...]

But two prisoners who underwent some of the harshest treatment — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times — repeatedly misled their interrogators about the courier’s identity.

[...]

Glenn L. Carle, a retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002, said in a phone interview Tuesday, that coercive techniques “didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.”

[...]

“The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. “It took years of collection and analysis from many different sources to develop the case that enabled us to identify this compound, and reach a judgment that Bin Laden was likely to be living there.”

"Waterboarding was not an interrogation method" is disingenuous at best. It does, in fact, require completely ignoring the entire chain of events leading up to its use. Congratulations; somewhere, John Yoo is smiling.
posted by faineant at 8:22 AM on May 5, 2011

This being said I think self defense is a hard case to make in this context. Where's the immediate danger/threat?

from our perspective, where was the immediate danger/threat on sept 10, 2001? - just because you or any of us don't see it, doesn't mean there wasn't one

The Seals could have easily captured him alive and returned him to the U.S. for trial.

he wasn't willing to go - and i'm not willing to see any more americans killed to satisfy your sensibilities

bin laden had killed enough americans already, damn it, and i don't know why he should have been given the opportunity to kill any more - or the benefit of the doubt

is it an ideal solution? no - but we don't live in an ideal world and this was probably as good as we could get

my attitude is i'm not in a celebratory mood - but to me, it's a case of what goes around comes around and i'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying it over
posted by pyramid termite at 8:23 AM on May 5, 2011

Trying to tie this back to the issue at hand... it's worth remembering that although Gandalf supported due process for Gollum he killed a lot of orcs (albeit not to my knowledge any that had surrendered). His colleagues Gimli and Legolas actually competed about how many orcs they could kill.

Which, if you're looking for a metaphor, might actually speak to the exceptionalism of the West - that if you are a Westerner like Gollum you are spared, because your life is important, whereas huge numbers of dark-skinned easterners can be killed without really worrying about it, because they are wholly the Other.

What this has to say about bin Laden I'm not sure, but I think that I am more upset about the deaths not just of the Americans and others who died in the 9/11 attacks, and also the people who died in the Bali bombing, and the Madrid and London bombings, but also the many, many people in the Arab and Islamic world who have died as a result of the 9/11 bombings, the reaction to the 9/11 bombings, acts of direct or indirect terror from governments and non-government organizations... not that there aren't plenty of questions around this operation, which may or may not be answered comprehensively, but OBL is quite a long way down my list of dead people who were innocent victims of the forces unleashed on and by 9/11.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:24 AM on May 5, 2011

I think the idea that Obama should have consulted Lord of the Rings before deciding what to do about OBL is probably the funniest thing I have ever read on Metafilter. Fantastic.
posted by unSane at 8:26 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Regarding the "Geronimo" discussion, "Jackpot" was actually bin laden's code name.

After bin Laden was killed, the military sent a message back to the White House: "Geronimo EKIA" — enemy killed in action. U.S. officials have since said that "Geronimo" was the name of the operation itself and that "Jackpot" was the code word for bin Laden.

"Stolen Identities: The Impact of Racist Stereotypes on Indigenous People," can be seen here at 2:15 p.m. ET."

Also, the expression Hillary Clinton has in the Situation Room photo may have just been her allergies.

"The photo shows Clinton with her hand to her mouth in what looks like a gesture of anxiety over the outcome of the operation.

"Those were 38 of the most intense minutes. I have no idea what any of us were looking at that particular millisecond when the picture was taken," she said on Thursday when asked about the photo during a visit to Rome.

"I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs. So it may have no great meaning whatsoever."

posted by cashman at 8:27 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

"I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs. So it may have no great meaning whatsoever."

Oh man, that's just great. My wife and I were discussing Hillary's expression, wondering if it indicated a softness or getting too emotional in a serious situation, what it would have been like if she was President, etc, etc

Turns out it was just allergies probably, ha! A photo may be worth a 1,000 words, but it depends on what those words are and who's writing them.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:34 AM on May 5, 2011

"Waterboarding was not an interrogation method" is disingenuous at best. It does, in fact, require completely ignoring the entire chain of events leading up to its use. Congratulations; somewhere, John Yoo is smiling.

The question of waterboarding's effectiveness is at least debatable.

"While reports suggest that the information KSM provided on the courier came weeks or months after he was subjected to EITs, Rodriguez says al-Libbi’s tips came just one week after he was subjected to the harsh treatment."

Why not consider the third bucket?

As for responding to maxims about torturers and links to 1984, there's not much I can say, as those aren't really arguments -- just reflections of deeply held, settled beliefs.

Again, if the only thing we're really disagreeing about is a method that was used on exactly three people and was ended by those "vile people in charge of this country for eight years," I think we're doing pretty well.
posted by BobbyVan at 8:37 AM on May 5, 2011

running order squabble fest writes "His colleagues Gimli and Legolas actually competed about how many orcs they could kill. "

Well to be fair from what I recall the Orcs during these contests were pretty well attempting to pound them into pudding. It wasn't like they were hiding out at Orccy doughnut shops waiting for increments to show up.
posted by Mitheral at 8:39 AM on May 5, 2011

Well to be fair from what I recall the Orcs during these contests were pretty well attempting to pound them into pudding. It wasn't like they were hiding out at Orccy doughnut shops waiting for increments to show up.

The orcs didn't have guns, why didn't Gimli and Legolas just arrest them?
posted by inigo2 at 8:42 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

The only good orc is a dead orc.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:44 AM on May 5, 2011

Teachers and students are invited to join Ben Rhodes, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, for a very special webinar (An Exclusive Discussion on Osama bin Laden) at 1PM ET.

“We expect a wide range of questions around the background of the 9/11 attacks as well as the events that led up to this past weekend’s events,” explained a spokesperson for Discovery Education, which asked the White House to participate in its series of live webinars.

*Presentation (15 minutes) Ben will provide context and perspective

*Q&A from Students (15 minutes) Students will have the chance to submit questions to be answered live

Discovery Education recommends the event for middle and high school students, most of whom are too young to remember the attacks or events that led to Osama bin Laden’s death.

Due to the sensitive nature of this webinar, we recommend that only middle school and high school classrooms register. The discussion within this webinar may include details and concepts not suitable for all ages.

The live webinar will start at 1:00 p.m. ET. Teachers and students can register for the free event here.
posted by cashman at 8:44 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Seals could have easily captured him alive and returned him to the U.S. for trial.

I think you are constructing this belief out some wishful thinking + some unverified assumptions. I mean, wow. Just wow.

An event like this seems to reinforce our narratives, not change them.

The defensive reasoning of many contributors to this thread, from different perspectives, is just amazing. There are those who are entrenched in their belief at all costs. I find it fascinating that we are all working with the same (faulty) set of data at the moment. And we are all interpreting on the fly. With more time to work different interpretations out than those Navy Seals had in the moment when they could have stayed alive or have been killed.

Let's talk about one model of how data and meaning affects our actions in order to understand HOW our armchair quarterbacking after the fact can lead to the wrong conclusions on what might have gone down. We get data from the environment. Some of us don't even always take in ALL of the data, but selectively choose what to pay attention to based on what we WANT to see. Sometimes other things prevent us from taking in certain data...stress, noise, etc. We interpret that data based upon our own filters. Some of us apply many different filters to compare interpretations. Some of us beat everything with the same damn filter. Based on those filters and interpretations? We make assumptions because we can't predict everything. Those assumptions lead us to conclusions and feed into our beliefs. Those beliefs? Direct our action.

We have data AFTER THE FACT that the SEALS didn't have. We are getting more and more data (slowly, incompletely) on the data that they DID have that we don't have yet. For example, I find it interesting to know that the SEALS engaged a courier in gunfire early on in the raid and found a false door early on. Run quickly through a set of mental filters on "what could that mean for what happens next?", would you create an assumption (not given a lot of time to process what was happening in a acutely stressful situation) that there might be more gunfire? More false doors? Possibly booby traps? You might not (good for you, Mr or Mrs See-Into-The-Future), but I would jump to the question, "What else? More gunfire? Ambush? Drawing us further in to trap us? Protect my squad while seeking target..." And so on.

I don't bring this up to explain the actions of the SEALS. I bring this up to point out the fact that MANY of us are going right to the conclusion stage and taking action in this thread (defending our position) without having more facts. Without waiting for more facts. The VERY thing that some of us are accusing the SEALS of doing...without having to be under fire or responsible for the lives of other people or worried about engaging a foreign country's military and kicking off WWIII.

I am one of the first people to criticize our government and I'm rather proud of the fact that I don't engage in knee jerk patriotism. However, I'm also not going to declare that I am certain of anything and point fingers (yet or ever, it depends obvs) until we know more. Those who don't care that bin Laden is dead or not are selecting their facts. Those who have strong opinions about wanting bin Laden alive are selecting their facts. Stop pretending that you have any certainty about this (though feel free to ask all of the questions that you like) unless you want others to question your credibility and your rationale.
posted by jeanmari at 8:52 AM on May 5, 2011 [5 favorites]

Aviation Week's take on the modified helicopter.
posted by ericb at 8:59 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The question of waterboarding's effectiveness is at least debatable.

Only in the minds of those still seeking to excuse its use. Renaming it 'enhanced torture techniques' or claiming its goal was 'ensuring compliance' is an uneasy side step, not an endorsement of its effectiveness.

Again, if the only thing we're really disagreeing about is a method that was used on exactly three people and was ended by those "vile people in charge of this country for eight years," I think we're doing pretty well.

Actually, I think we're back to arguing whether or not Obama should have consulted Lord of the Rings prior to authorizing the raid.
posted by faineant at 8:59 AM on May 5, 2011

Are there any serious arguments or critiques here? No? Just strawmen and innuendo? Ok thanks for playing.

Aha! I finally get it-- I finally get where you've gone wrong in terms of your Metafilter participation-- you see it as a game, one which you think we're all all supposed to be trying to "win." It's not. We're not. It's a conversation. Most of us are participating in it, not trying to "win" it. You should consider trying a similar approach-- it would save you a lot of stress.
posted by dersins at 9:05 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Even as former Bush administration officials complain not enough credit is being given for the intelligence-gathering of that period, it's worth revisiting exactly what the emphasis of those investigations was and the methods employed.

Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.{...}

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.{...}

A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq.

"While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

It was also at this time that Bush commented, "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. {Bin Laden}." (March 13, 2002).
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:07 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

"OBL is dead. He was a world class mass murderer.
No, he was not a murderer, at least not that I've ever heard."

So, in other words, he was no more of a murderer than Hitler. Got it.
posted by markkraft at 9:14 AM on May 5, 2011

^{Sorry for perpetuating the derail. I didn't mean to.}
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:15 AM on May 5, 2011

I need to see photographs in order to prove Osama Bin Laden was, in fact, an Orc.
posted by mazola at 9:17 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm reading the Wikipedia page on Bin Laden and the most striking section is attempts by the Us to capture, it really makes the Bush Administration look like complete screwups.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:34 AM on May 5, 2011

America = Mordor
The dirty wizard Osama = Gandalf
The Ring = evil terrorist plots
Getting ring to Mordor = mushroom cloud
posted by Artw at 9:34 AM on May 5, 2011

America = Mordor
The dirty wizard Osama = Gandalf
The Ring = evil terrorist plots
Getting ring to Mordor = mushroom cloud

As long as I get to be Mal or Han Solo or Batman, whatevs.
posted by grubi at 9:36 AM on May 5, 2011

The Seals could have easily captured him alive and returned him to the U.S. for trial. The argument that the seals had to shoot to protect the team is kinda not really convincing to me as our military has planned and executed snatch and grabs of high value targets before. Soldiers will obviously do as much as they can to protect their teammates, but the mission is more important than the individual. If given the mission to capture Osama alive I am confident the Seals could and would have done so.

You know literally nothing at all about what is and not possible when it comes to this sort of thing. Honestly - you have not a clue and this is painfully obvious to me and to anyone else with an ounce of knowledge about this sort of thing. It is so frustratingly wrong that I can only consider that any knowledge you have viz "snatch and grabs" has been garnered by watching some god-awful tv show or reading a novel with little to no grasp of reality.
posted by longbaugh at 9:37 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, in Bahrain: Medical staff face prosecution, alleged torture after aiding anti-government protesters

Physicians Urge Obama Admin to Pressure Mideast Ally Bahrain to End Repression of Doctors, Patients
posted by homunculus at 9:37 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh holy hell, there are some terrible websites out there presenting this stuff from Argyris. (CRINGE) But if you want a visual of one way to determine how data leads to action, then here you go.

The managing of public perception around this event has been a freaking nightmare and I don't envy anyone who has had to be involved. It is the upside and the downside of internet communication and 24/7 news cycles. We have access to some data immediately, before the picture is complete. But once we've determined what that picture should be, we don't have the self-discipline or motivation to go back and revise it. If the incomplete picture is compelling, emotions get involved and everyone looks for the opportunity to make the event fit their worldview or their agenda. What a mess. And since we won't be teaching media literacy anytime soon in public schools (unless it ends up on an SAT some day), we're stuck with this growing mess for now.
posted by jeanmari at 9:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think the idea that Obama should have consulted Lord of the Rings before deciding what to do about OBL is probably the funniest thing I have ever read on Metafilter. Fantastic.

Wow that's exactly what was suggested.

I think you are constructing this belief out some wishful thinking + some unverified assumptions. I mean, wow. Just wow.

This belief is based on the fact that over the last 10 years the U.S. has extraordinarily renditioned hundreds if not thousands of individuals. Also given the numerical, strategic, and technological advantage that the seals had I find it entirely plausible that they could have accomplished this mission.

I'm also not going to declare that I am certain of anything and point fingers until we know more. Those who don't care that bin Laden is dead or not are selecting their facts. Those who have strong opinions about wanting bin Laden alive are selecting their facts. Stop pretending that you have any certainty about this (though feel free to ask all of the questions that you like) unless you want others to question your credibility and your rationale.

Who's claiming certainty about anything? I think the point I and others have made is that there is specifically no certainty about anything especially about the manner in which OBL was killed. I have stated that it is my opinion that he was assassinated, but qualified that with the fact that certainty is pretty elusive at this point. I think one needs to read more carefully unless one wants others to question their credibility and rationale.

you see it as a game, one which you think we're all all supposed to be trying to "win." It's not. We're not. It's a conversation. Most of us are participating in it, not trying to "win" it.

Thanks for the psychoanalysis, but it was a poor choice of words nothing more.

You know literally nothing at all about what is and not possible when it comes to this sort of thing. Honestly - you have not a clue and this is painfully obvious to me and to anyone else with an ounce of knowledge about this sort of thing. It is so frustratingly wrong that I can only consider that any knowledge you have viz "snatch and grabs" has been garnered by watching some god-awful tv show or reading a novel with little to no grasp of reality.

I see, but you of course have been involved in numerous military operations of this type? Given that the actual number of DEVGRU members is very small I highly doubt that anyone on metafilter knows anything about the actual capabilities and operating methods of the team that killed OBL. The fact is that in the past numerous snatch and grab missions have been carried out successfully. Therefore it is not a logical stretch to assume that a similar outcome was possible here. Unless of course some of metafilter's resident special forces guys want to set us straight about why this wasn't a possible outcome.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:03 AM on May 5, 2011

Actually, I think we're back to arguing whether or not Obama should have consulted Lord of the Rings prior to authorizing the raid.

Exactly. And clearly the death of Wormtongue during the Scouring of the Shire was an assassination - he was no further threat when he was killed.
posted by me & my monkey at 10:10 AM on May 5, 2011

Congress stopped him from closing Gitmo with veto-proof mega-majorities and then threatened to cut funds to transfer KSM to federal court. Even Bloomberg backed down when he saw the polling numbers. Obama still wants to close Gitmo, but he lacks Congressional and public support. The public, in their stupidity, opposes closing it in large numbers.

All that you mention above was completely foreseeable when Obama made these promises, which certainly doesn't excuse him from failing to deliver on them. So unless you think Obama's stupid, the reasonable conclusion is that he made those promises to appease a base that was pretty far out of line with the "stupid" public.

You're correct that Obama did not open Gitmo and did not torture KSM. But even critics of "enhanced interrogation" must concede that the intel that led to OBL came from interrogations in "black sites" conducted without the presence of legal counsel.

the President misjudged regarding the support for closing Gitmo. He's human.

That statement on torture is the biggest parse I've ever seen. Apparently, I'm supposed to concede that the actual interrogation session that provided the intel, took place within a black site. Sure, I concede that. But let's break it down, shall we? The mere fact that the actual interrogation took place in a place where KSM was tortured months earlier means nothing. By attempting to conflate the location with the methods, you hope to ingeniously make people agree that waterboarding worked, despite no evidence being presented that torture had anything to do with the piece of information gleaned.

Please don't do that.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:11 AM on May 5, 2011

Wow that's exactly what was suggested.

C'mon, don't be shy. You introduced a new rhetorical category, the argumentum ad Tolkein. Respect, dude, respect.
posted by unSane at 10:14 AM on May 5, 2011 [6 favorites]

I see, but you of course have been involved in numerous military operations of this type? Given that the actual number of DEVGRU members is very small I highly doubt that anyone on metafilter knows anything about the actual capabilities and operating methods of the team that killed OBL. The fact is that in the past numerous snatch and grab missions have been carried out successfully. Therefore it is not a logical stretch to assume that a similar outcome was possible here. Unless of course some of metafilter's resident special forces guys want to set us straight about why this wasn't a possible outcome.

You have no evidence. That's what we are saying. Whereas, we know for a fact that there is no way that the SEAL team could have known he was not armed. Indeed, there was an AK-47 and a pistol within reach when they shot him.

This is a man who openly admitted he was the person behind 9/11. At first he denied it, but over time, he dropped the pretense and made multiple statements he was the person behind the attack.

If this was an arrest in the United States, then this would have been perfectly legal. And yes, as a police union lawyer, who has done multiple use-of-force firearms cases, yes I am an expert on that.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:16 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

You introduced a new rhetorical category, the argumentum ad Tolkein.

wouldn't that be argumentum ad hobbitum?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:16 AM on May 5, 2011 [7 favorites]

If the ring doesn't fit, you must acquit.
posted by dhartung at 10:16 AM on May 5, 2011 [9 favorites]

And yes, as a police union lawyer, who has done multiple use-of-force firearms cases, yes I am an expert on that.

IAAL, IANOBLL?
posted by dhartung at 10:18 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's a little tough to parse all the back-and-forth in the media about whether torture "worked" or not, but what I've gathered so far is this:

When queried, under torture, about the identity of the courier who led the US armed forces to OBL, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed lied about the courier's identity and importance. It was other information from other sources, not acquired through torture, that revealed his true identity and importance.

So the argument for torture in this case is, apparently: that a person lied under torture and we knew it was a lie and that's what tipped us off to the courier's importance.

You can decide for yourselves what flavor of horseshit this is.
posted by Aquaman at 10:22 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

I see, but you of course have been involved in numerous military operations of this type?

Nope - and I said so in my post so you can drop that canard right away.

Given that the actual number of DEVGRU members is very small I highly doubt that anyone on metafilter knows anything about the actual capabilities and operating methods of the team that killed OBL.

Funnily enough I do happen to know quite a bit about the capabilities and operating methods of various special forces units around the world. DEVGRU, CAG, SOG/SAD and pretty much any other Tier 1 unit use the same tactics and techniques as anyone else - they just do them better. With sufficient money and spare time you can train in the same ways as others in the community. There are no hidden ninja techniques, just constant practice and preparation.

The fact is that in the past numerous snatch and grab missions have been carried out successfully.

For every one you can name I'll bet you two went awry.

Therefore it is not a logical stretch to assume that a similar outcome was possible here.

For the above reasons I will disagree with you.

Unless of course some of metafilter's resident special forces guys want to set us straight about why this wasn't a possible outcome.

If you won't take my word for it others have also told you how wrong you were as well. We can have a challenge of wits on this particular subject if you like but I won't be the one trawling off to wikipedia every five minutes to look up my answers.
posted by longbaugh at 10:22 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Given that the actual number of DEVGRU members is very small I highly doubt that anyone on metafilter knows anything about the actual capabilities and operating methods of the team that killed OBL.

You are in this set, and you are therefore completely unqualified to make this statement: The fact is that in the past numerous snatch and grab missions have been carried out successfully. Therefore it is not a logical stretch to assume that a similar outcome was possible here.

It's a big logical stretch, because you have no idea what the intelligence was that lead to this operation, nor do you know anything about what, exactly, the SEAL team responsible was capable or not capable of doing in that moment. Up above you claimed that they have technology that can see through walls and clothes - technology, you imply, that is available to be carried by or mounted on the helmet of an individual soldier, and that's simply fantasy. But since you're apparently capable of going to such lengths to assert that you know things you can't possibly know, I'm not surprised that you think it's entirely logical to second-guess that actions of the SEALs and those who designed the op they carried out. Remember: no one "on metafilter knows anything about the actual capabilities and operating methods of the team that killed OBL."
posted by rtha at 10:25 AM on May 5, 2011

Separated at birth?
posted by unSane at 10:30 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

rtha - Up above you claimed that they have technology that can see through walls and clothes - technology, you imply, that is available to be carried by or mounted on the helmet of an individual soldier, and that's simply fantasy

I missed than one!

AE - I'm gonna go with by using the same technology that allows them to look through walls and clothes. Also, as I stated up thread there are a plethora of non lethal technologies that could have been used to take him alive with minimal risk to our soldiers.

You're talking about MMW radar which doesn't exist in portable form at this time. Non lethal technologies I covered much earlier in the thread and I'd recommend you just maybe search the thread for it. Basically - no, that isn't something they'd carry because it is suicidal.
posted by longbaugh at 10:36 AM on May 5, 2011

That statement on torture is the biggest parse I've ever seen. Apparently, I'm supposed to concede that the actual interrogation session that provided the intel, took place within a black site. Sure, I concede that. But let's break it down, shall we? The mere fact that the actual interrogation took place in a place where KSM was tortured months earlier means nothing. By attempting to conflate the location with the methods, you hope to ingeniously make people agree that waterboarding worked, despite no evidence being presented that torture had anything to do with the piece of information gleaned.

Please don't do that.

I just said that waterboarding's effectiveness is debatable in my view, so please don't manufacture a conflation when none was intended. My point is exactly the opposite.

I'm saying that the critique of Bush's detention policies was about more than waterboarding. It was about "secret CIA prisons," detentions of Al Qaeda fighters without charges, interrogations without the presence of legal counsel, etc. So even if you don't accept that waterboarding led to valuable information -- you must concede that the overall structure that Bush established produced valuable information.

I don't pretend to have certainty that waterboarding did work; yet many are dishonestly arguing that it did not work. The fact is that we do not know if it worked or if it did not work, and that people of good faith disagree.

Finally, I strongly suspect that if we had treated Al Qaeda operatives as "prisoners of war" - obligated only to provide name, rank and serial number; or criminals - with rights to silence and legal counsel -- we would know much, much less. I don't expect you to concede this last point, but it's my view, for what it's worth.
posted by BobbyVan at 10:41 AM on May 5, 2011

I don't see what would be wrong if a leader had read some Tolkien and been influenced by it. There's some wisdom there. And if Tolkien is wrong in some ways, perceiving that and thinking about it could hone one's moral sense. There's tons of wisdom in Tolstoy, too. And Shakespeare, and Aquinas, and Homer.

What do our rulers read? Dale Carnegie? Milton Friedman? Leo Strauss? Ayn (God save us) Rand? Or there's an even worse thought: That they're learning their morality from Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kiefer Sutherland.

What's so wrong with the original quote Aelfwine used? That's a good quote.
posted by Trochanter at 10:42 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here's a pretty in-depth article about what waterboarding did and did not produce in this case.
posted by Aquaman at 10:47 AM on May 5, 2011

I am astounded by the numbers of ex-SEALS, interrogation experts, operations planners, and close friends of Osama. Truly MetaFilter is attracting only the best and brightest.

Speaking of bright, I think the most argumentative of you best show us your genius certificates.

And finally a closing thought: it is best to be quiet and thought a fool, than to speak and prove it. Goddamn, but some of you are foolish. Foolish certified geniuses.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:49 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

What I find interesting is there was 28 minutes between boots on the ground and Osamas death. What was he doing all that time? If there was an AK-47 in the room with him, don't you think he would have grabbed it before the SEALs came in, instead of lunging for it after?

I'm surprised no one in the media has really asked this...
posted by atomicmedia at 10:52 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

Now completely unable to look at this photo without imagining that they are watching the siege of Minas Trith.
posted by unSane at 10:53 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am astounded by the numbers of ex-SEALS, interrogation experts, operations planners, and close friends of Osama.

Don't forget the Tolkein scholars.
posted by unSane at 10:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

some of metafilter's resident special forces guys want to set us straight about why this wasn't a possible outcome.

Don't the reports say it was a possible outcome, but the circumstances of the situation and the events that occurred led to our forces shooting him twice? Why are you speculating like there isn't any word coming from the agencies that are responsible for conveying this information? There is. It isn't altogether one coherent account chiseled into granite yet, but it's Thursday, and this whole thing happened on Sunday.

Going back to the idea that people (neighbors or the government) had to know about Bin Laden being there if he was there for years and years, remember Jaycee Lee Dugard?
posted by cashman at 10:58 AM on May 5, 2011

Demonstrated capability demonstrates capability. It's that simple. You can go on and on about how I don't know jack shit. Which is true, I am not intimately acquainted with the murderous arts as some here apparently claim to be. Sorry if I don't take what some random dude on the blue says as gospel truth. What I will take as gospel truth is the fact that the U.S. military has in the past demonstrated the capability to apprehend dangerous suspects without killing them. Does that mean that shit never goes wrong? No, not claiming that. As I have stated time and time again: It is my OPINION that OBL was assassinated, but it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that they were under orders to take him in if possible. Unfortunately there are so many conflicting reports that no one really knows jack shit about anything other than OBL is dead.

So statements like this: "If this was an arrest in the United States, then this would have been perfectly legal. And yes, as a police union lawyer, who has done multiple use-of-force firearms cases, yes I am an expert on that," are pretty meaningless and illustrate to me that you aren't being objective. I mean really? Your going to come in and give an expert law opinion on this situation? A situation in which you have interviewed zero participants and have access to zero firsthand accounts. In fact the only first hand accounts available are from the people inside the compound who survived the attack, and tell a very different story than the multiple versions pouring out of the White House. Again to clarify: I DO NOT THINK THAT MY VERSION OF EVENTS IS FACT AND RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE MY OPINION AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE. I am merely expressing an opinion and do not understand why some people have such a problem with that. Being the experts you all seem to be the opinion of one lonely Tolkien nerd should really be the least of your worries.

you best show us your genius certificates.

Mine is at Michaels being framed....how bout next week?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:00 AM on May 5, 2011

Yes thanks unSane, I mean Tolkien Scholar not nerd. Thank you for correcting me.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:01 AM on May 5, 2011

Bin Laden's obit in the Economist is exceptional.
posted by zarq at 11:01 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Here's a pretty in-depth article about what waterboarding did and did not produce in this case.

For now, the most that can be said about the “enhanced interrogation program” is that it may have led to the nom de guerre of the courier, which got the ball rolling. That’s not nothing, and it complicates the operational case against torture. But even that is less than certain, and it hit its limits when trying to ascertain Ahmed’s real name.

So it didn't do much, except for maybe uncovering a vital piece of evidence, the nom de guerre, that led to the discovery of the courier's real name, that led to Bin Laden. Any fair minded person must allow for this possibility.

You can still say that waterboarding is wrong and we shouldn't do it, EVEN IF IT WORKS. But that would take a bit more moral courage than saying, "it's wrong, and by the way, the question is irrelevant because it doesn't work."
posted by BobbyVan at 11:03 AM on May 5, 2011

"Clothes are but little loss, if you escape from drowning. "

—Tom Bombadil
posted by clavdivs at 11:07 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Any fair minded person must allow for this possibility.

The oldest rhetorical trick in the book. Gee, if I don't agree with you I'm not a fair-minded person.

Any responsible intelligence operation would follow up the name of every single person mentioned by any detainee in any situation. That's what happened here. Any fair minded persons must agree.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:11 AM on May 5, 2011

I am merely expressing an opinion and do not understand why some people have such a problem with that.

Because you quoted from a fictional story to try and prove a point, which was extremely bizarre, while calling everyone around idiots and casting yourself as the solely enlightened one.

How did you think the conversation was going to go after dropping those little nuggets?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:12 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

If the ring doesn't fit, you must acquit.

Magical rings automatically size to fit their possessor hence the same ring fitting Nazguls, hobbits, men and what ever the heck Gollum turned into. Self aware rings will resize to change owners which is why Gollum lost it to Frodo in the first place.

What I find interesting is there was 28 minutes between boots on the ground and Osamas death. What was he doing all that time?

I've wondered this too. Was he asleep at the switch? Did his hideout not have even the basic alarm system a suburban American house is often equipped with? How silent are these choppers? Is gun fire so routine that it isn't alarming? Why wasn't there an escape tunnel built into the compound or even a hidden cellar? For a super criminal his hideout and staff was decidedly sub par.
posted by Mitheral at 11:14 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Demonstrated capability demonstrates capability. It's that simple. You can go on and on about how I don't know jack shit. Which is true, I am not intimately acquainted with the murderous arts as some here apparently claim to be.

And yet you keep insisting that you are expert enough to know that they could have snatched him alive, and since they could have, they should have. You out-and-out made up technology that the soldiers supposedly have access to, and built an argument on how the SEALs must have known he was unarmed based on that bit of fiction. You keep doing this.

Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, I demonstrate that I am capable of walking down stairs (I live on the third floor) without any mishap. But! Every once in a while, my foot comes down wrong, or I miss a step, and I almost-but-not-quite fall down the stairs. Despite my demonstrated capability, I take what steps I need to (ha ha) to keep myself from going ass-over-teakettle, and those steps change depending on the situation, and they are something I have a split second to assess. And that's just stairs! Easy!
posted by rtha at 11:14 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

which is why Gollum lost it to Frodo in the first place.

Do I want to do this..... no.
posted by Trochanter at 11:17 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The oldest rhetorical trick in the book. Gee, if I don't agree with you I'm not a fair-minded person.

Not asking you to agree... just to allow for the possibility. That would require your mind to be open just a crack, which is a requisite for fair-mindedness.

Any responsible intelligence operation would follow up the name of every single person mentioned by any detainee in any situation. That's what happened here. Any fair minded persons must agree.

Speaking of rhetorical tricks!
posted by BobbyVan at 11:17 AM on May 5, 2011

Why are you speculating like there isn't any word coming from the agencies that are responsible for conveying this information?

Because he won't credit any of the news coming from the agencies that are responsible for conveying this information. As far as I can tell the argument goes something like this: The government lies, nobody knows nothing for certain, therefore I have my opinion which I'm entitled to change in the future, but, really, I can imagine how Bin Laden might've been taken alive, so, obviously, we must have wanted him dead, and that isn't something Gandalf would ever endorse.

Grrr. Between the "Obama: History's Greatest Monster" and the "Wuz torture that done it" sides of this discussion, I'm near exasperated enough to stab goats.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:18 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

I've been assuming it was a straight hit from the beginning, and the "justified force" arguments are really just cover. I'd have a little more respect for the administration if they'd just admit it was a hit, but whatever. It's not a huge point in my mind.

This is that rare outlier case that occasionally gets brought up when debating a specific political proposition. Is it ever justified to order an assassination? No, of course not. "What about Osama bin Laden?" Hmmm, let me think about it. Now that I say "yes, that was justified" it makes me consider the overall question. I guess it is occasionally justified to order an assassination. My idealist knee jerk is defeated. I remain happy with the news. Life goes on.
posted by norm at 11:19 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

I would guess that there wasn't any time to grab it once it was clear that the SEALs were there, but I don't know.

From the Economist obit: He seldom shed blood himself, though his treasured Kalashnikov, which he carried everywhere, was said to have been wrested in single combat from a Russian soldier in Afghanistan.

There was 28 minutes.
posted by atomicmedia at 11:20 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

So statements like this: "If this was an arrest in the United States, then this would have been perfectly legal. And yes, as a police union lawyer, who has done multiple use-of-force firearms cases, yes I am an expert on that," are pretty meaningless and illustrate to me that you aren't being objective. I mean really? Your going to come in and give an expert law opinion on this situation? A situation in which you have interviewed zero participants and have access to zero firsthand accounts

Uh, I have the same descriptions you do--that you've based your entire fantasy screeds upon.

Here's the rule. Non-lethal force required unless there is probable cause that the suspect is a threat to the officer or others. And that is not a time-limited or situation-limited threat. Literally, his escape could threaten thousands of people, as he has admitted to killing thousands of people. So you can't shoot a young man fleeing a broken-in house. But the world's greatest terrorist, rarely photographed without his trusty AK-47, after having gone through the house, encountered resistance and seen multiple weapons caches? You sure as hell can shoot him if he refuses to surrender.

This is a quick summary judgment motion.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:21 AM on May 5, 2011

The oldest rhetorical trick in the book. Gee, if I don't agree with you I'm not a fair-minded person.

Not asking you to agree... just to allow for the possibility. That would require your mind to be open just a crack, which is a requisite for fair-mindedness.

Any responsible intelligence operation would follow up the name of every single person mentioned by any detainee in any situation. That's what happened here. Any fair minded persons must agree.

Speaking of rhetorical tricks!

I call it sarcasm.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:22 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Magical rings automatically size to fit their possessor hence the same ring fitting Nazguls, hobbits, men and what ever the heck Gollum turned into.

The war with Mordor was fomented by the Tiffany corporation to try and remove damaging competition in the ring-sizing sector. SAURON = INSIDE JOB.
posted by cortex at 11:22 AM on May 5, 2011 [6 favorites]

What I find interesting is there was 28 minutes between boots on the ground and Osamas death. What was he doing all that time?

When I was still under the impression that he was holed up in a mansion, this is how I thought it went down.
posted by mazola at 11:22 AM on May 5, 2011

Not asking you to agree... just to allow for the possibility. That would require your mind to be open just a crack, which is a requisite for fair-mindedness.

I do not agree with your premise, which is that somehow, they wouldn't have followed up on every single name this guy uttered, in his sleep, on the shitter, anything he fucking underlined in his copy of Newsweek. You ask me to believe that our guys were so shitty that they wouldn't have looked up the names unless he did this. Horseshit.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:24 AM on May 5, 2011

What I find interesting is there was 28 minutes between boots on the ground and Osamas death. What was he doing all that time?

What could he do? The idiot was holed up on the third floor of a secure compound, he had no escape route and few guards. Once a crack team of professional solders were in the compound it was just a matter of time.

Sounds like he got soft, to be honest, as if no one could and would find him. Probably because he had help from Pakistani elements in some force or fashion and expected that to help. The stealth copters, if that's indeed what they are, were well used.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:25 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

There was 28 minutes.

Yeah, I saw the obit. The famous AK-47 may or may not have been in the room he may or may not have been trapped in when the SEALs may or may not have made it impossible for him to grab it. Or, he may have chosen not to grab it, or he may have handed it off to a bodyguard to use.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:26 AM on May 5, 2011

WAR WILL END WHEN THE RING CYCLE IS THROWN INTO MOUNT DOOM AND WAGNER IS FINALLY VANQUISHED FOREVER!!!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:26 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

No that's a Sauron is not an entity to be spared or killed, but whose fate is driven by Tolkien's mythology not his morality play.

So you admit that there are some people for whom it is their fate to be killed?...

Alright, I'll get to my point -- my point is that taking a book and pulling a quote out to illustrate your point is ultimately not the wisest thing -- because someone can more likely than not do the very same thing, only in support of the opposite point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:26 AM on May 5, 2011

Magical rings automatically size to fit their possessor hence the same ring fitting Nazguls, hobbits, men and what ever the heck Gollum turned into.

The war with Mordor was fomented by the Tiffany corporation to try and remove damaging competition in the ring-sizing sector. SAURON = INSIDE JOB.

ROFLMAO
posted by Ironmouth at 11:26 AM on May 5, 2011

What I find interesting is there was 28 minutes between boots on the ground and Osamas death. What was he doing all that time? If there was an AK-47 in the room with him, don't you think he would have grabbed it before the SEALs came in, instead of lunging for it after?

Maybe he was asleep initially. The time from first shots fired to them being in his room might have been 15-20 minutes. And didn't the "Accidentally the whole tweet thing" guy say that there is gunfire around that area all the time? So gunfire wouldn't have necessarily alerted him. Additionally, he had so many people around him he probably thought he was protected. Also, weren't there children around? The weapons may have been somewhere he had to go to get them from, and maybe he sent someone else to get them. He'd been hiding out for years. I doubt he was frosty, sitting there with a burned-down cigarette and an exposed light bulb swinging overhead.

I see what you're saying, and I have had the "pick up the gun" thoughts myself - I just think that even if they just up and said "yeah, we just shot him on sight, even as he tried to surrender", that at the end of the day (or month, in this case), people are ultimately not going to have a problem with it. Especially if they say he said he was surrendering, but "made a move".

In this same line of thought, I wondered how they shot him once in the chest and once in the head. That's pretty clean for a house at 1:15am and if he's actively trying to resist.

But since I go on about my day each day while U.S. law enforcement shoots and kills people in messed up situations fairly often and walk away scott free, the death of Osama Bin Laden is going to register but then dissipate pretty quickly.

also, is the javascript not loading new posts for anybody else?
posted by cashman at 11:27 AM on May 5, 2011

And yet you keep insisting that you are expert enough to know that they could have snatched him alive

Nope. Not claiming to be an expert. That would be various other people in the thread. I am merely positing the capability based previous events demonstrating capability. Not a very controversial position I would think.

You out-and-out made up technology that the soldiers supposedly have access to, and built an argument on how the SEALs must have known he was unarmed based on that bit of fiction. You keep doing this.

Actually the technology exists and it has been in the hands of regular army since at least 2005. I guess you missed my comment where I linked this. Again it's entirely possible that the team wasn't using the latest technology and was only relying on nv or ir.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:27 AM on May 5, 2011

(It wasn't an AK-47 he was always pictured with but an AKS-74U - totally different weapons - I'm just saying)...
posted by longbaugh at 11:28 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

OK, waterboarding is wrong and we shouldn't do it, EVEN IF IT WORKS.
posted by Aquaman at 11:33 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

sez Aquaman.
posted by mazola at 11:35 AM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

my point is that taking a book and pulling a quote out to illustrate your point is ultimately not the wisest thing -- because someone can more likely than not do the very same thing, only in support of the opposite point.

I would hope so(support the opposite point) otherwise the book would probably be horribly written. You guys have really blown this out of proportion. It's been enjoyable though watching you flail about as if you were making a valid point. And you have to admit it has led to some good comments. Yeah I used a quote from the Fellowship of the Ring to illustrate my viewpoint more eloquently than I ever could. Deal with it.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:35 AM on May 5, 2011

You think someone is going to clear a room with a carbine in one hand a one of those in the other?

Jesus Christ...
posted by longbaugh at 11:36 AM on May 5, 2011

Actually the technology exists and it has been in the hands of regular army since at least 2005. I guess you missed my comment where I linked this. Again it's entirely possible that the team wasn't using the latest technology and was only relying on nv or ir.

Time to actually read the article that completely contradicts what you think it can do and its operational deployment:

A warfighter searching a building will now be able to hold the Radar Scope up to a wall and detect in seconds whether someone is in the next room. It doesn’t matter if that someone plays possum; just as long as he is breathing, he will make a detectable movement.”

The device is expected to take several years to develop. Ultimately, servicemembers will be able to use it simply by driving or flying by the structure under surveillance, Baranoski said.

You implied it could see weapons inside clothes. It just returns a radar image of people in a room. You stated that it had been in the hands of the "Regular Army since at least 2005."

Both statements are directly contradicted by the article you linked. The device was going to take years to develop. And it didn't do what you hoped, which is see things in his clothes. Nor could you even prove such devices were carried by the SEALs in question.

In other words, nice try.

But you went hunting for it in the first place when you couldn't answer the simple question of how the SEALs would know bin Laden wasn't armed. This is the huge thing that you cannot get around. So then you did some link searching and then misrepresented what was in them to support your argument. But it doesn't even to that.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:36 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

There were lots of people in the compound who had to be dealt with. It wasn't just a case of blasting their way up the stairs.
posted by unSane at 11:36 AM on May 5, 2011

It doesn't even return a radar image. It just beeps if someone moves in the room beyond the wall. It's a simple doppler device. Nothing more. I have no idea what its relevance here is. I suspect none.
posted by unSane at 11:38 AM on May 5, 2011

Wait, I thought Osama was the Cleric, why would the navy seals have flails?
posted by Artw at 11:39 AM on May 5, 2011

What was it like when they heard a helicopter land on the roof?

Both helicopters landed on the ground.

"The original plan to place a rappelling team on the roof with a second team dropping into the courtyard was jettisoned when one of the helicopters, its blades clawing at hot, too-thin air, had to put down hard. Both choppers landed in the courtyard, behind one ring of walls with more to go."*

posted by ericb at 11:40 AM on May 5, 2011

Indeed, the vaunted radar scope doesn't even provide images, according to a .pdf from DARPA:

See page 11 of the pdf linked at link 2:
http://websearch.darpa.mil/search?q=radar%20scope&btnG=Search&entqr=0&ud=1&sort=date:D:L:d1&output=xml_no_dtd&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&site=default_collection

On page 11 DARPA itself states that the device does not even provide images, just a warning there is something else in the room. (super .pdf doesn't allow me to copy, what like I can't read, Mr. James Bond?)

If you are gonna bring it, be damn sure it does what you say it does.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:41 AM on May 5, 2011

Actually the technology exists and it has been in the hands of regular army since at least 2005.

Are you even reading your own links, or are you just flailing around on google to justify your claims?

The first two links are to in-development technologies that are not available to anyone outside of a laboratory.

The third link, your "proof" that the military has been able to see 3D images through walls since 2005, is to a completely different technology that can only indicate that a person is present in the room. It is described in the article as "a motion detector that can see through walls.".

How exactly is a motion detector going to indicate the presence or absence of a weapon?
posted by tocts at 11:43 AM on May 5, 2011

AElfwine Evenstar, it's getting really annoying with the constant moving of goal posts after you said you said you were leaving the thread.

It's getting difficult to think that you're doing nothing but trolling for shits and giggles.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:44 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Actually the technology exists and it has been in the hands of regular army since at least 2005.

Your "exists" link points to an article written this month about a prototype handheld device. Prototype. Not in production yet. Your "technology" link points to a piece about a handheld device that cannot see through walls, unless the walls are made of "Steel 0.4mm; Aluminum 0.6mm; Cardboard 12.7mm." It's also "under development and available for Lab demonstrations only." So to me, that doesn't mean it exists in the way you seem to think it exists.

Does the military have awesome secret toys? Yes - look at the stealth helicopter they lost in the op! Or whatever it was, exactly - some kind of secret technology. But the point is you don't know what it is they've got, and of what they've got, what would be realistically usable in a situation like this.
posted by rtha at 11:45 AM on May 5, 2011

Uploaded by @reallyvirtual - Video [3:22] : Obama's residence, burning after the attack. Last 2:30 is too dark to see
posted by cashman at 11:46 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

THE WHITE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!!???
posted by longbaugh at 11:47 AM on May 5, 2011 [10 favorites]

Obama's residence, burning after the attack

The White House is on fire?!

Consistently using Bin Laden avoids this
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:48 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

TBH if it was tactically necessary to shoot him in the kneecaps, let him crawl around for 28 minutes then shoot him in the back of the head I wouldn't be *that* upset about it.
posted by Artw at 11:49 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well shit.
posted by cashman at 11:51 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Jinx motherfucker. :D
posted by longbaugh at 11:52 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama's residence, burning after the attack

A-ha! cashman works for FOX News!
posted by ericb at 11:52 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Or I'm Jon Stewart, one of the two.
posted by cashman at 11:54 AM on May 5, 2011

The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11).

And then there were more attacks, which were also not prevented by the Bush administration.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:54 AM on May 5, 2011

Uploaded by @reallyvirtual - Video [3:22] : Obama's residence, burning after the attack. Last 2:30 is too dark to see

Latest White House reports indicate the house was "reaching for a weapon" and "was given the opportunity to surrender but refused."
posted by formless at 11:54 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

What's so wrong with the original quote Aelfwine used? That's a good quote.

It's not the quote, it's the moral condescension contained in using it as an argument, and then telling people to read the book so they will be able to develop a moral code.

I'm all right with people taking moral absolutes as a starting point, but to basically not give it up and harangue people about it when the deed is as done as deeds get is risking becoming a crank.
posted by dhartung at 11:56 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

You have to admire the way AElfwine, once he realized he had dug himself into a hole, not only continued excavating at full tilt, but began new holes, and returned to a couple he had previously abandoned. Commitment, man. I like that.
posted by unSane at 11:57 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

He dug too deep!
posted by Artw at 11:58 AM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

We can't stop here, this is bat country.
posted by iamabot at 11:58 AM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

What holes would those be?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 11:59 AM on May 5, 2011

He dug too deep!

And too greedily. You know what he awoke in the darkness… shadow and flame.
posted by Aquaman at 12:01 PM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

5 State of the Art Military Technologies That Helped Take Out Bin Laden.

No X-Ray Glasses or Elven Arrows mentioned.
posted by ericb at 12:01 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

You know what he awoke in the darkness of moral absolutes... shadow and flame! With guns that see through walls!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:03 PM on May 5, 2011

What that certain technology isn't currently available to the public? Not really that big of a hole as it isn't central to any of my arguments. It wasn't moral condescension. My outburst was directed at the fact that several people apparently thought or were pretending to think that literature is not an avenue to understanding. It was not a moral judgement. You are free to paint it that way if you want, but it is simply not true.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:03 PM on May 5, 2011

No X-Ray Glasses or Elven Arrows mentioned.

Dude, don't trust the media, these things are real!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:04 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

you know what he awoke in the darkness of moral absolutes

Now I'm dealing in absolutes? That's hilarious. Mis-characterizing my arguments is kinda disingenuous don't you think?
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 12:07 PM on May 5, 2011

What you referred to specifically that sees through clothing is millimetre wave radar. This does not currently exist in a form that could be mounted on a weapon and then allow the user to carry out a room clearance without getting killed.
posted by longbaugh at 12:08 PM on May 5, 2011

something seems to be going on outside of Rivendell - could we please go out there?
posted by mumimor at 12:08 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not asking you to agree... just to allow for the possibility. That would require your mind to be open just a crack, which is a requisite for fair-mindedness.

Codswallop. It's asking that we ignore the numerous findings of experts, including those who were involved at the time, who have been reporting for frikken YEARS now that using torture to elicit accurate, actionable intelligence doesn't work.

You can still say that waterboarding is wrong and we shouldn't do it, EVEN IF IT WORKS. But that would take a bit more moral courage than saying, "it's wrong, and by the way, the question is irrelevant because it doesn't work."

I don't agree with your premise that it works or that it may work. Saying that it doesn't work isn't some sort of lack of moral courage on my part, it's a conclusion based on research of recent and past historical events, and the testimony of you know, actual interrogators, military and otherwise.
posted by faineant at 12:09 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

BobbyVan, if I agree that you are a really tough guy, fersure, will you stfu about torture? Every reputable expert says it does not work as advertised. You are not a reputable expert.

AE, I feel sorry for you.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:12 PM on May 5, 2011

A patriot's guide to still hating Obama for killing Osama.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:13 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

You can still say that waterboarding is wrong and we shouldn't do it, EVEN IF IT WORKS.

A stopped clock is right twice a day.
posted by dhartung at 12:14 PM on May 5, 2011

Now I'm dealing in absolutes? That's hilarious. Mis-characterizing my arguments is kinda disingenuous don't you think?

Sorry. No offense meant. Just riffing on the Tolkien thing. Copied and pasted that from the comment above. Honestly, I'm not even really following the arguments at this point.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:14 PM on May 5, 2011

What could he do? The idiot was holed up on the third floor of a secure compound, he had no escape route and few guards. Once a crack team of professional solders were in the compound it was just a matter of time.

Sounds like he got soft, to be honest, as if no one could and would find him. Probably because he had help from Pakistani elements in some force or fashion and expected that to help. The stealth copters, if that's indeed what they are, were well used.
posted by Brandon Blatcher

This. To me, it seems clear that Osama BL's best safety net was elements of the ISI/Pakistani Govt., which would explain why he was so far "in-land." I have a feeling Osama and his allies didn't count on the US being able to violate Pakistani Sovereignty without any warning.
posted by rosswald at 12:15 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: Honestly, I'm not even really following the arguments at this point.
posted by mazola at 12:16 PM on May 5, 2011 [10 favorites]

I do not agree with your premise, which is that somehow, they wouldn't have followed up on every single name this guy uttered, in his sleep, on the shitter, anything he fucking underlined in his copy of Newsweek. You ask me to believe that our guys were so shitty that they wouldn't have looked up the names unless he did this. Horseshit.

thought the idea was that he didn't reveal the courier's name under torture, so they somehow "knew" it was important when he gave them the name later.

If that ain't it, what is it?

A few things.

1) You're presuming that KSM would have eventually given up the goods in a standard interrogation, and that the waterboarding was irrelevant to his later compliance. I don't think that's a provable hypothesis.

2) You're implying that the CIA interrogators are lying when they say that waterboarding was useful in determining which information was most critical to pursue in a later standard interrogation (they must be sadists, right?).

3) I'm not just talking about KSM. Al-Libbi supposedly gave up critical info on the courier networks one week after being waterboarded, confirming information provided by other detainees.

Bottom line: I think waterboarding can be morally permissible in certain extreme circumstances. I also think that waterboarding might be effective in certain situations, and there is some evidence that it "got the ball rolling" in developing the intel to capture OBL. I have, however, outlined practical reasons not to do it, such as negative PR, which could outweigh the potential benefits.

And five fish, yes, I think I'll "stfu" about torture for now. If you're tired of reading about it, imagine how I feel writing about it.
posted by BobbyVan at 12:19 PM on May 5, 2011

If you're tired of reading about it, imagine how I feel writing about it.

Tortured?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:21 PM on May 5, 2011 [5 favorites]

What that certain technology isn't currently available to the public? Not really that big of a hole as it isn't central to any of my arguments.

Then why dig it in the first place? Why argue that the technology must exist and is in use by the military in small-team raids like this, when you can't actually point to anything that supports that? Why demonstrate so plainly that you haven't actually read the links you posted?
posted by rtha at 12:28 PM on May 5, 2011

As someone with a gut-level dislike of the use of torture, I'll say that I appreciate having BobbyVan's perspective in this thread.
posted by hat at 12:29 PM on May 5, 2011

MSNBC Video: Bin Laden shot in PJ's, not going for weapon.
posted by atomicmedia at 12:31 PM on May 5, 2011

Not that sort of weapon at any rate...
posted by longbaugh at 12:32 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Obama to meet bin Laden SEAL team -- "In Kentucky visit, he'll thank the U.S. personnel involved in killing al-Qaida."
posted by ericb at 12:33 PM on May 5, 2011

I hope he doesn't make any sudden moves.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:35 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

What I find interesting is there was 28 minutes between boots on the ground and Osamas death. What was he doing all that time?

Yeah, that is an interesting question.

Okay so here's a dumb one, to follow that up: how do the SEALs actually get into the building? Do they kick down the door? Break a window?

OBL's only line of defense was the armed courier in the guesthouse?
posted by torticat at 12:36 PM on May 5, 2011

Okay so here's a dumb one, to follow that up: how do the SEALs actually get into the building? Do they kick down the door? Break a window?

I don't know, but here's an illustration of the compound for a visual frame of reference. I don't now if the 'copters landed inside or outside the walls, but either way, there were doors between the inside and outside and various subsections.

So in the future secret terrorist compounds should dispense with doors I guess.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:44 PM on May 5, 2011

5 State of the Art Military Technologies That Helped Take Out Bin Laden.

No X-Ray Glasses or Elven Arrows mentioned.

Yeah, but, come on: "Armored Hounds." Armored fucking Hounds. That's, like, infinity times awesomer-sounding than "X-Ray Glasses" and every bit as Tolkein-esque as "Elven Arrows."
posted by dersins at 12:45 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

OBL's only line of defense was the armed courier in the guesthouse?

Yeah, like Brandon Blatcher wrote above: he'd gone soft. He felt well-protected by the whole Pakistani military establishment living around him. And to be fair: he may well have been counting on their pride and incompetence, rather than their complicity.
posted by mumimor at 12:47 PM on May 5, 2011

5 State of the Art Military Technologies That Helped Take Out Bin Laden.

I thought for sure this was going to be a Cracked article.
posted by desjardins at 12:49 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but, come on: "Armored Hounds." Armored fucking Hounds.

Wargs?
posted by rifflesby at 12:50 PM on May 5, 2011

According to the video I linked above the 28 minutes until Bin Laden was shot is now untrue.
posted by atomicmedia at 12:50 PM on May 5, 2011

Yeah, but, come on: "Armored Hounds."

Was I the only person disappointed by the lack of a photo of a dog in sunglasses, combat headphones and body armor with missile launchers on its back?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:50 PM on May 5, 2011

As for "opinions" and "perspectives" — FFS. Try this: it is my opinion that the moon is green cheese.

I expect that statement to be accepted and respected and taken ever bit as seriously as our resident "expert" on the beneficial outcomes of torture.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:51 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is why we can't have fancy-schmancy poets in the republic.
posted by clavdivs at 12:52 PM on May 5, 2011

Actually it's gouda. Everyone knows Neil Armstrong brought crackers.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:53 PM on May 5, 2011

OMG! This is like the lamest SNL Laser Cats video, yet!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:55 PM on May 5, 2011

I imagine it's still a surprise to some folks that he wasn't armed for bear. My questions revolve around whom he may have been expecting to come through the door.

(I still can't parse the risk-reward matrix for Pakistan, which is why I doubt the highest levels of government knew anything of this. Even assuming a rogue support network, you're talking people putting themselves at considerable risk for what? Abottabad must have offered some "in plain sight" un-obviousness protection, but how one could assume the US would never dare -- when they are operating pretty much continously in other parts of the same province -- seems to beggar belief.)

The compound map shows a courtyard on the left (which is roughly to the WSW by compass). The choppers apparently landed there; the small structure in the lower right of that yard is the ancillary house where they encountered small arms fire. They proceeded to the main structure, where they found a false door, but soon must have located the real entrance. I don't know how long all of that took, but a good chunk of minutes I'd imagine.
posted by dhartung at 12:57 PM on May 5, 2011

Reuters: Alarmed by lawmakers' demands to cut off billions of dollars of U.S. aid after bin Laden was found living in a Pakistani safe house for six years, President Asif Ali Zardari has ordered a full-court press to quell mounting accusations that it helped the al Qaeda leader avoid capture.

Mark Siegel, a partner in the Washington lobbying firm of Locke Lord Strategies -- which is paid $75,000 a month by the Pakistani government -- told Reuters on Thursday he had spoken twice to Zardari since U.S. special forces killed bin Laden on Sunday, and "countless" times to the Pakistani ambassador in Washington.

Some members of Congress are now demanding that nearly $3 billion in annual aid for Pakistan, included in Obama's 2012 budget, be blocked until the Zardari administration explains how bin Laden lived untouched just 30 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Pakistan has received over $20 billion in U.S. aid since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Siegel's firm was retained by the Zardari government in 2008 and has earned nearly $2 million in fees since then, according to Justice Department records. Siegel said his firm is paid $900,000 a year by Pakistan.

Since bin Laden's death, Siegel says he has been on Capitol Hill every day to promote Pakistan's position on the bin Laden killing, talking to congressmen, senators and their aides.

Huh, I learned today there are lobbyists paid by foreign countries to promote their position as being more credible in our government.

It does not seem wise to me to describe doubting the reality of what's shared by the government as a conspiracy theory, which is now a term whose unstated meaning at this time is idiotic hysteria. It seems wiser to me to analyse the information from as many sources as possible and think about it with some perspective, especially in light of recent history. A reference point that comes to mind is being told that our taxpayer dollars were going towards stopping weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A result of which is: Infographic of Iraq War killings

The people of Japan believed their government and then along came Fukushima, the reality that their government colluded in letting Tepco get away with deadly mistakes for their own profit. This blind trusting the government thing in Japan has not worked out well for the entire planet. Nor did it work for the people in the Ukraine or millions of people impacted by radiation in Europe after Chernobyl.

What about the lies of Vietnam, that the air was safe after 9/11, countless instances of deception with the media enabling the lies?

No, I think looking at the details with attention and thinking about the situation, talking about it rationally in a civil way, not insulting those with doubts, is an excellent thing.

My speculation is that OBL was killed, as Benazir Bhutto stated 2 November 2007 in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera. She stated Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

I speculate that maybe the US wanted OBL's sons, Hamza, Khalid, Saad and Mohammad, who would have taken over the reins of Al-Qaida? the kids would have been young, healthy, unlike their diabetic and chronically ill father. Maybe those sons were worth interrogating or it was necessary to get the computers/thumb drives and intel info that would have been in possession in that house?

I am glad the intel was taken. If one or more of the sons were killed or taken for interrogation that would likely be beneficial for the planet's safety, hopefully a diminishment of the Al-Qaida monster.

Like with Fukushima, Chernobyl, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, "I did not have sex with that woman", Wikileaks and countless other government deceptions of all kinds that have come to be known better as the truth was outed over time, I do hope that less conflicting, more substatial data can and will emerge about this situation.
posted by nickyskye at 1:13 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

My questions revolve around whom he may have been expecting to come through the door.

To my knowledge the Pakistan military helicopter fleet includes Mi-8/17 "Hip" helicopters which are extremely distinctive in shape. Understandably it was dark and many things happening at once but I find it hard to believe that his men wouldn't recognise a modified MH-60 in comparison.

I don't know how long all of that took, but a good chunk of minutes I'd imagine.

With the crashed helicopter you've got to delegate someone to destroy the avionics and other equipment and further someone then has to keep the SOAR fellows out of trouble. That would likely have had eaten up some time and a few of the team members as well.
posted by longbaugh at 1:16 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

My speculation is that OBL was killed, as Benazir Bhutto stated 2 November 2007 in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera. She stated Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

Hey, it's not exactly clear to me what you saying, but it sounds like you think Bin Laden has been dead for years and the raid by US forces on the compound in Pakistan was to capture his sons, is that correct?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:20 PM on May 5, 2011

Yeah, but, come on: "Armored Hounds."

Was I the only person disappointed by the lack of a photo of a dog in sunglasses, combat headphones and body armor with missile launchers on its back?

Looks like at this point artistic renderings of what exactly happened will become a mini-cottage industry unto itself and I welcome the many fantastical renderings of this momentous event come to life through the eyes of the fantasy and sci-fi and cosplay community. I predict there will be recreations of what happened with the various Star Wars archetypes at the various Dragon-Cons and other "cons."
posted by Skygazer at 1:25 PM on May 5, 2011

There is a new thread for the conspiracy theories.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:26 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes, Brandon, that's my speculation. Benazir Bhutto's statement seemed credible to me. The fact that Omar Sheikh, a Pakistani terrorist, did the killing of OBL 5 or six years ago, meant nobody at the White House or US military could take credit for it, after billions of dollars of taxpayers money had been spent on both Afghanistan and Pakistan (and still being spent, annually).

This raid now seems to me a way to nail the next generation of OBL spawn, who would have taken the dynastic reins (which is commonplace all over the world, from Bush to Bhutto) get the intel and take credit for offing the Big Bad Guy. Great for re-election. Possibly a pre-cursor for rewriting policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Not sure what will happen. That's my speculation.
posted by nickyskye at 1:27 PM on May 5, 2011

My speculation is that OBL was killed, as Benazir Bhutto stated 2 November 2007 in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera. She stated Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. ... The fact that Omar Sheikh, a Pakistani terrorist, did the killing of OBL 5 or six years ago, meant nobody at the White House or US military could take credit for it

What motivation would bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter have for perpetuating the "OBL alive until May 1st, 2011" myth? I know the source on her quote about him being killed post-capture on Sunday is the ISI, but it still seems like if he were killed in 2005, that she wouldn't be claiming he'd been killed by the Americans this week.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:30 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

So we are speculating that the Obama administration, out of nowhere, decided to risk total destruction by claiming that they had recently killed bin Laden, so that if someone produced proof that bin Laden in fact died long ago, Obama's support would evaporate and he would be forced to resign immediately.

I suggest we stop speculating about that now because it is silly.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:32 PM on May 5, 2011 [10 favorites]

Benazir Bhutto's statement seemed credible to me

I had some modicum of respect for her as a potential leader of Pakistan (tempered by the knowledge that her own family has been implicated in terrorism and blood feuds), and she talked a really good game in the Western media, but I don't know why she would -- absent other supporting evidence -- be a credible source. There have been many rumors swirling throughout the region for many years, fueled by the lack of transparency in governments. It's probable she believed this, but there have always been a variety of opinions even among experts.
posted by dhartung at 1:40 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Benazir Bhutto's statement seemed credible"

I'm really puzzled how your estimation about one person "seeming credible" outweighs the preponderance of other evidence.

I understand and am sympathetic to your more general argument about skepticism on reports of events, but I really can't get from there to here based only your gut feeling that somebody's statement a few years ago was credible and on an imagined scenario based on what seems like a sketchy understanding of international politics. It's not the skepticism alone that's problematic, but proceeding beyond that to construct an alternate scenario based on absolutely no evidence other than gut feeling. That first "huh, maybe he's been dead a long time" is indeed speculation, but as speculation becomes more firmly stated and more detailed and more imagined players are given roles and motivations, there is no material difference between speculation and conspiracy theory.
posted by Miko at 1:41 PM on May 5, 2011

Looking around the 'net real quick, Bhutto doesn't provide any details, just the name of the supposed killer. Can you provide a link for further details?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:43 PM on May 5, 2011

Bin Laden started dying in December 2001 and really made a habit of it.
posted by Miko at 1:48 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Huh, I learned today there are lobbyists paid by foreign countries to promote their position as being more credible in our government.

You just became aware of this and you are castigating other people for blindly trusting in their political institutions? No offense, but you do not sound very well informed.

Yes, Brandon, that's my speculation. Benazir Bhutto's statement seemed credible to me. The fact that Omar Sheikh, a Pakistani terrorist, did the killing of OBL 5 or six years ago, meant nobody at the White House or US military could take credit for it, after billions of dollars of taxpayers money had been spent on both Afghanistan and Pakistan (and still being spent, annually).

You linked to a Wikipedia article about this fellow above, but seem indifferent to the information in that article about how he has been in prison since February 2002. Are you saying that the Pakistani government brought Osama Bin Laden to the guy's cell or something? I think you might benefit from a little less rapid net-surfing and a little more book study.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:50 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

"I suggest we stop speculating about that now because it is silly."

I think you are missing the core nuance of the goofy conspiracy theorist: The fact that it is wildly silly only strengthens their belief it must be true.

I know.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:52 PM on May 5, 2011

I heard Paul McCartney killed Bin Laden in 2002. Pretty much the only worthwhile thing he's ever done.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:52 PM on May 5, 2011

Did he do it by playing Mall of Kintyre to OBL over & over again?
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:54 PM on May 5, 2011

No, hang on, that would be cruel & unusual punishment. Let's not open that Pandora's box.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:57 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's not merely a gut feeling I have. It's a speculation after analysis. Not solid, not proven, just speculation.

I lived in India from 1975 to end of 1985, lived in the house with a Major General in Defense Colony, New Delhi, as a neighbor with whom I had many conversations about the political/military issues in that part of the world over 4 years, from 1980, shortly after the Russians took over Afghanistan and then as the CIA took over Afghanistan/Pakistan to late 1985.

Heard all about the American government's involvement in the heroin business in that part of the world. Spoke with many spooks from many nations sitting around the swimming pool in New Delhi all during the Iran/Iraq war, spoke with many refugees of that war in India, translated for journalists coming to India to work on various aspects of political investigation at that time.

In the late 1970's Bruce Chatwin wrote a bit but intelligently about the complex politics of the USA/Pakistan/Afghanistan.

Also knew and talked with Field Marshall Manekshaw at length (we were neighbors for several months in the winter of 1979 and had many dinners, lunches together) about the Indo-Pakistani War.

It's long ago enough that I can say I had a brief affair with a secret service agent in New Delhi during George Schultz' trip there in 1984 and we discussed the situation on the Afghani/Pakistani border, the heroin biz etc.

That was a politically charged area of the world at that time in the late 1970's and early 80's for lots of reasons, including the US arming the Pakistanis with nukes. The Man Who Knew Too Much | On the Nuclear Edge | related mefi thread

Yup, that's true that if what was reported as her testimony is credible. so many conflicting pieces of data have been told about this event, I don't feel confident about the details of this event yet.

Benazir's comment seems credible to me. It had no ostensible agenda to benefit her by saying that.

Osama's compound - burning after the attack "The video was shot by a shopkeeper and shared by a local guy here for the summer - from the UK"

Likable article: Was Osama Bin Laden my neighbour?

Bin Laden's half-sister's brain? Everyone from the New York Times to yours truly has called up Massachusetts General Hospital hoping for a confirmation of the report, first carried on ABC News, that an MGH-held DNA sample from Obama Bin Laden's half-sister's brain had been used to clinch the DNA match. However, the hospital was not able to confirm the story, saying in a statement that its "policy is to not release patient information to law enforcement agencies without a subpoena or similar order, and that after a reasonable inquiry it could find no indication that it had received a subpoena regarding DNA for a relative of Osama bin Laden.''

But, added Cotton, until officials tell us more about the sources of the samples, we can only guess at precisely how they arrived at the match.
posted by nickyskye at 2:07 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Look, it's clear OBL would have been captured had he only surrendered.

He just wasn't briefed on the mission cryptonym for 'surrender'.
posted by mazola at 2:08 PM on May 5, 2011

It's a speculation after analysis. Not solid, not proven, just speculation.

Analysis of what, though? With respect, your listing of links and life experiences just seems very disconnected to me. What is the analysis you have done? If it's more than a gut feeling, what are the pieces of evidence in support of Bhutto's statement?
posted by Miko at 2:12 PM on May 5, 2011

Huh, I learned today there are lobbyists paid by foreign countries to promote their position as being more credible in our government.

Local consultants aided Khadafy -- Cambridge firm tried to polish his image.

How a US consulting firm used American academics to rehab Muammar Qaddafi’s image.

US Consulting Group Working For Libya Did Not Register As Foreign Agent.

US firm Monitor Group admits mistakes over $3m Gaddafi deal.

Monitor Group and Qaddafi: Still Spinning?

posted by ericb at 2:12 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Breaking down the Situation Room

Obama Blocks Release of Graphic Photos for Second Time

Not two wives, one wife there: Fatah, bin Laden's fifth wife and the only one left living with him in the house

Quoting New York Times Jim: "White House keeps changing story on Bin Laden raid. Here's version 3": Account Tells of One-Sided Battle in Bin Laden Raid
posted by nickyskye at 2:12 PM on May 5, 2011

The irony is that this monster was of McCartney's own creation. In 1987, bin Laden became radicalized after playing a cassette of The Frog Song (We All Stand Together) on repeat for days at a time. He would wander the streets of Kandahar with his Walkman, spreading his deranged message. "We all stand together!" he would proclaim. "Bomb! Bomb, bomb!". For the Afghan people, this spoke to a deep-seated resentment of the Soviet occupation, and bin Laden's status as a leader was sealed. McCartney's life since this time has been devoted to intelligence-gathering and close-quarters combat training, to undo his terrible wrong by any means necessary.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:13 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Huh, I learned today there are lobbyists paid by foreign countries to promote their position as being more credible in our government.

Well, there was the baby incubator fraud.
posted by dhartung at 2:16 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

nickyskye: “Benazir's comment seems credible to me. It had no ostensible agenda to benefit her by saying that.”

Well, Benazir Bhutto is credible to me, too. And I don't think she was trying to advance an agenda there, either.

Unfortunately, credible people who don't have an agenda can be wrong. It's understandable to lean toward believing that they're correct in lieu of any other evidence, though.
posted by koeselitz at 2:26 PM on May 5, 2011

If it's more than a gut feeling, what are the pieces of evidence in support of Bhutto's statement?

Nothing I have based my speculation on is iron clad.

Let's see, here's one doubt that has been considered by many. Videos and audio recordings of Osama bin Laden since 2007, when Benazir Bhutto stated what she did about OBL being killed by Omar Sheikh have been questioned as being authentic.

Osama Bin Laden was unfindable for 10 years, in spite of the bounty on his head. No credible sighting of him occurred for the last 4 years.

Benazir was very knowledgeable about the staggering complexities of loyalities, histories in that part of the world that have baffled US intelligence all along. Like all politicians I've ever heard of, she was not above corruption herself. She was no saint.

It is speculated in Pakistan that OBL had a vested interest in the death of Benazir Bhutto as well, allegedly put up a $50 million dollar bounty on her head.
posted by nickyskye at 2:29 PM on May 5, 2011

And if one adds another complex dimension involved in this mess, both the Saudi connection and the India connection into the Pakistan/Afghanistan entanglement, Benazir was more likely to have know who did what to whom, than any Western politico-military person I've heard speak about this.
posted by nickyskye at 2:32 PM on May 5, 2011

Nickyskye, what a lifetime of experiences! It must have been amazing, and you certainly have some knowledge of the Indian sub-continent.
Still, I think it's too strange to believe that any American government would invent a hoax like the one you are suggesting. Think about it - aren't there far too many witnesses who could disprove it?
posted by mumimor at 2:32 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The world is chock-a-block full of people who fervently believe things I am pretty sure are not true, and at the very least, contradict each other in their exclusive claims to truth. This entire fiasco, in fact, is at least partially fueled by same mistakes. Many of these people are highly credible. And no matter how you slice it, a large percentage of them, on one side or another, if not all, have to be wrong.

There are few things more dangerous than a good, credible person who is wrong. They are so hard not to follow off the cliff.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:32 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Let's see, here's one doubt that has been considered by many. Videos and audio recordings of Osama bin Laden since 2007, when Benazir Bhutto stated what she did about OBL being killed by Omar Sheikh have been questioned as being authentic.

Benazir was very knowledgeable about the staggering complexities of loyalities, histories in that part of the world that have baffled US intelligence all along. Like all politicians I've ever heard of, she was not above corruption herself. She was no saint.

It is speculated in Pakistan that OBL had a vested interest in the death of Benazir Bhutto as well, allegedly put up a $50 million dollar bounty on her head.

These are not evidence supporting Ms. Bhutto's theory. The fact that the person she said killed bin Laden has been locked up for years before the alleged killing is evidence against her theory.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:32 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

...to continue, I certainly know how being around agents and insiders cultivates the view that governments do shady, shitty things. I wanted to come back and be clear that I don't contest that at all. I'm not coming from a place of naivete about the operations of government and military powers.

But it seems like that piece of very general knowledge about the capabilities of government agents has been plugged in here as the foundation for an imagined scenario with an absence of direct evidence in favor of its existence. So it is a gut feeling, but it's just not convincing without a preponderance of evidence to support the various claims. I don't find the links offered so far to be in any way convincing - it's still just absence of evidence.

Separate point - let's say it's true; Obama died a long time ago, and this raid was about something else, or nothing at all, just a dumb show. Even if that's true, the result is that the US has created grounds to claim that bin Laden is dead - something that the government has been unable to plausibly claim until now. The simple psychology of this unresolved issue had been detrimental to the international interest of safety, and that hanging shoe has been allowed to drop. Even if totally made up, the utter confidence asserted by the claim definitely must shifts some power structures.
posted by Miko at 2:35 PM on May 5, 2011

It is speculated in Pakistan that OBL had a vested interest in the death of Benazir Bhutto as well, allegedly put up a $50 million dollar bounty on her head.

That's not what that link says at all - it says OBL put up (supposedly) $50M toward her no-confidence vote in '89. It doesn't say anything about a bounty. Is there another link you meant to include there?
posted by macfly at 2:36 PM on May 5, 2011

Sources: Bin Laden Acted 'Cowardly,' Confused in Final Moments

Sources involved in the operation that took down Usama bin Laden told Fox News the terrorist leader acted "scared" and "completely confused" in his final moments, "shoving his wife" at the Navy SEAL who ultimately shot him.

The information helps clarify the conflicting details about what exactly happened toward the end of the 40-minute raid on bin Laden's northern Pakistan compound. Sources who were part of the mission said bin Laden acted in a "cowardly manner" when confronted. Fox News has also learned that while bin Laden was unarmed, he was standing near the door within reach of two weapons -- an AK-47 and a Makarov handgun that are now in U.S. custody. The handgun is a 9mm semi-automatic Russian pistol, standard issue in the Russian military until 1991.

A senior U.S. official also told Fox News that only one of the five people killed in the raid was carrying a weapon and firing. The detail seemed at first to diverge from White House accounts claiming the Navy SEALs encountered resistance throughout the raid and were engaged in a firefight during much of the 40-minute operation. However, the scene was described as chaotic, with U.S. forces encountering barricades and women in the compound screaming and attacking the men.

posted by BobbyVan at 2:38 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The handgun is a 9mm semi-automatic Russian pistol, standard issue in the Russian military until 1991.

Fascinating! I wonder if the story about it is true (that either this or the Kalashnikov were wrested from the hands of a Red Army officer during hand-to-hand combat) -- at the least it does sound like a war trophy.

I do wish the story wouldn't keep changing, and in so many substantive ways -- it certainly must help increase the doubt in some quarters.
posted by dhartung at 2:49 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I do wish the story wouldn't keep changing, and in so many substantive ways -- it certainly must help increase the doubt in some quarters.

I think in the interest of transparency and the excitement of having done something the country had wanted for a long time, they fed information piecemeal as it got to them, maybe even from notes from their own watching of some of the video, real-time. But the details came later and contradicted the first reports.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:53 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Okay so here's a dumb one, to follow that up: how do the SEALs actually get into the building? Do they kick down the door? Break a window?

IANANS, but I work on a cop show and I've watched a technical adviser train actors in how to enter a building and clear a room. It's possible that Navy SEALs use a totally different technique, but I would be shocked if they went through a window. The idea is to enter any room and within moments have every area from which fire could come covered. You can have a guy with a mini battering ram take down a door, step out of the way and have his teammates flood in with guns at the ready in a matter of seconds. Coming through a window wouldn't allow you that kind of readiness.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:54 PM on May 5, 2011

Separate point - let's say it's true; Obama died a long time ago...

Oh Miko, you too? :)
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:56 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

A quick wrap-up from the local press:

Operation Get Osama signals loss of values

Order for execution was illegal

"If you grant a human right to one person, it applies to all, no matter how evil or dastardly we consider them"

Bin Laden's summary execution maketh the man, martyr and myth

The final article there was written by Geoffrey Robertson QC, international super-lawyer, most recently in the news as Julian Assange's counsel against the extradition proceedings: "a barrister whose brilliance has won some of the defining legal battles of the age".
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:57 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Looks like he was still plotting attacks:

"As of February 2010, al-Qa'ida was allegedly contemplating conducting an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001," the document reads, using an alternate spelling for bin Laden's terror group. "As one option, al-Qa'ida was looking into trying to tip a train by tampering with the rails so that the train would fall off the track at either a valley or a bridge. "

According to former White House counterterrorism advisor and ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the fact that such proposals were discovered in bin Laden's possession shows how integral he still appeared to be to terror plots.

The evidence appears to confirm that Bin Laden still had a role in approving al Qaeda plots, just he did for the 9/11 terror attack.

posted by Ironmouth at 3:01 PM on May 5, 2011

Nickiskye, Bhutto did say that Osama bin Laden had been killed "years ago" in the interview with David Frost, but it was obviously a mistake. Why do I say that?

Because, when Butto was under house arrest, according to her own account, during a telephone interview with NPR, she mentioned asking the police why they were detaining her instead of searching for bin Laden:

"I have freedom of movement within the house. I do not have freedom of movement outside the house. They've got a heavy police force inside the house, and we've got a very heavy police force - 4,000 policemen around the four walls of my house, 1,000 on each. They've even entered the neighbors' house. And I was just telling one of the policemen, I said 'should you be here after us? Should not you be looking for Osama bin Laden?' And he said, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, this is our job. We're just doing what we are told.'"

That interview took place Nov. 8, 2007, six days after the Frost interview when she said bin Laden was already dead!

Now, i don't trust most govwrnment officials, including America's, unless 1) What they say essentially agrees with the facts that I can find from other sources, and 2) I can see no benefit FOR THEM if they lie.

So, let's say Osama bin Laden was killed by this Sheikh, as Bhutto claimed during the Frost interview, (never mind that she contradicted herself later). That was back when W was President. Do you think for one moment that, had that actually happened, W wouldn't have taken credit for bin Laden's death?! Of course he would have! I imagine he would spin it this way, "We're making such headway in our War on Terror, thanks to my leadership as the Decider, that now the terrorists are fighting and killing each other! Mission Accomplished AGAIN!"

There's another reason why it just doesn't make sense that bin Laden died then. There are some people, Americans and non-Americans alike, who are angry because they think maybe bin Laden should have been given a chance to surrender during the Navy Seals raid. And one of his Osama bin Laden's daughters says he was killed in cold blood during the raid. Whether the Navy Seals did this or not, the point is that his daughter said bin Laden was alive and killed by us just a few days ago. Why would she lie about that, if he had died years ago? Why not say he was dead back then? Why wouldn't his family being out the body and blame the U.S. and make him a martyr then?

Nope, your theory just doesn't make sense.
posted by misha at 3:03 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Clearing the room training (for SWAT, only real difference with SEALs would be weapons, armor, and e.g. night vision equipment).
posted by dhartung at 3:04 PM on May 5, 2011

[Current President of Pakistan and widower of Benazir Bhutto] “And for me, justice against bin Laden was not just political; it was also personal, as the terrorists murdered our greatest leader, the mother of my children—Benazir Bhutto. Twice he tried to assassinate my wife. [Benazir Bhutto]

Worth reading: Afghanistan and Pakistan: Understanding a Complex Threat Environment

Fox News even reported OBL as dead, as far back as 2001. So it must be true. ;-) heh (just kidding guys). Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.

Frances Fragos Townsend, who stepped down last November as chief of President George W. Bush's Homeland Security Council, "I've read all the same conflicting reports [on bin Laden's health] that people have talked to you about. I never found one set of reporting more persuasive than another."

In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden had kidney disease, and that he had required a dialysis machine when he lived in Afghanistan. That same year, the FBI's top counterterrorism official, Dale Watson, said, "I personally think he is probably not with us anymore."

2008 Time magazine article: "Is Osama bin Laden Dying ... Again?"

See, others have had doubts too, people in the know have had doubts, FBI "top counterterrorism" guy had doubts. I can have my well considered doubts and speculations rationally and not be called a conspiracy theorist.
posted by nickyskye at 3:09 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

See, others have had doubts too, people in the know have had doubts, FBI "top counterterrorism" guy had doubts. I can have my well considered doubts and speculations rationally and not be called a conspiracy theorist.

Note the difference in verb tenses there. I wonder if those people have doubts now? It's not at all inconsistent for anyone, before last Sunday, to believe that ObL was likely dead, and now to believe that he probably wasn't dead then and is now.

Otherwise, you have to answer some hard questions. If he's already dead, why bother announcing it as something that just happened? If he's already dead, and the point of the mission was to do something else, why bother announcing the mission at all - I doubt it's our first incursion into Pakistan? If he wasn't actually killed during this mission, why would the President risk his credibility on something that doesn't really matter - after all, dead is dead?

To ignore those questions, in my opinion, while focusing on the minutia of minor differences in accounts as the real questions: that is definitely headed into conspiracy theory-land.
posted by me & my monkey at 3:17 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

nickyskye, the difference is those doubts and skeptical analysis were expressed in the absence of a credible claim of his death. By themselves, they do little to undermine the authority of the administration's claims.
posted by dhartung at 3:18 PM on May 5, 2011

(Yes, I hope everyone here agrees – well, at least I can state for myself – that you're no conspiracy theorist, nickyskye. People might disagree with your measured speculation without thinking you're bonkers. At least, that's where I am.)
posted by koeselitz at 3:20 PM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Robertson's piece misquotes US law.

Details of the ''firefight'' are still obscure. The law permits criminals to be shot if they or their accomplices resist arrest in ways that endanger those striving to apprehend them. They should be given the opportunity to surrender, if possible, but even if they do not come out with their hands up, they must be taken alive if that can be achieved without risk

This is not the law for an apprehension of a US criminal. If the crime is a felony, then non-deadly force is required unless probable cause exists that the person would be a risk to the officer or others.

Two weapons were in reach. He was known to be constantly armed.
posted by Ironmouth at 3:28 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Otherwise, you have to answer some hard questions. If he's already dead, why bother announcing it as something that just happened? If he's already dead, and the point of the mission was to do something else, why bother announcing the mission at all - I doubt it's our first incursion into Pakistan? If he wasn't actually killed during this mission, why would the President risk his credibility on something that doesn't really matter - after all, dead is dead?

Dead is not dead, actually. Dead at the very beginning of a decade-long war is not remotely the same as dead a decade in.

If Obama just said, "Welp, turns out, dude's been dead this whole time," he and his predecessors would have some 'splaining to do.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:34 PM on May 5, 2011

"I can have my well considered doubts and speculations rationally and not be called a conspiracy theorist."

I think there is a disconnect here.

If your well considered doubts include a theory on your part that the US Administration and military conspired to fake a raid that killed OBL, since they knew he was already dead (or realized after the fact he was dead), then you are by definition very much a conspiracy theorist. Right? I am misunderstanding your "speculations" somehow?
posted by y6y6y6 at 3:35 PM on May 5, 2011

I wonder if those people have doubts now?

Welcome to speculating. :)

If he's already dead, why bother announcing it as something that just happened?

More speculating. Wag the dog or politically useful for re-election purposes. I don't know. Politicians of all ilk in Washington have not been very credible for quite some time for many reasons.

I'm grateful for some clarity on various topics by WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers, credible journalists, credible authors.

those doubts and skeptical analysis were expressed in the absence of a credible claim of his death

You speculate the FBI top counter terrorism honcho (FBI's top counter terrorism official, Dale Watson) would have based his speculation on sweet nothings? No, that doesn't seem reality based to me. I don't know what these top FBI guys of yore based their speculations on. Intel, military analysts, reports?

Then again Dale Watson, who was in a position of tremendous power re our involvement in wars with Muslims as participants: When asked whether he, as the FBI's former counterterrorism chief, knew any of the differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Watson replied, "Not technically, no."

ai ai ai. And it was guys like this who headed the FBI investigation into the September 11, 2001 attacks and was Chief of the FBI's International Terrorism Section?! Crikey. The lack of comprehension by the USA government of ~~Pakistan and Afghanistan, anything Muslim~~ the world outside the USA boundaries is incredible.
posted by nickyskye at 3:35 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm okay with waiting and seeing, having my doubts, hoping for more clarity, better evidence.
posted by nickyskye at 3:37 PM on May 5, 2011

I don't think you're a conspiracy theorist. I just think you may be placing too much credence in rather old declarations from probably trustworthy sources who may nevertheless have had bad or incomplete information, even if we give them the absolute benefit of the doubt. Those statements may raise questions, but they don't seem like the sorts of questions that stand up to much scrutiny. Whether you consider yourself a conspiracy theorist or not, what you are suggesting would have to entail, if true, a massive conspiracy. Massive conspiracies are always the absolute least likely explanations, because they ironically rely on way too much unwaivering trust and competance to be successfully perpetrated by mere humans. Small scale conspiracies, sure. Massive conspiracies, no.

That's my stand, and I'm sticking to it.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:41 PM on May 5, 2011

Thanks, Bookhouse and dhartung. Really interesting.

(That SWAT vid is hilarious, though. Comes across like Celebrity Apprentice... "You're both dead! OUT!")

I do like it that the shotgun for taking out a lock is called Little Pig.
posted by torticat at 3:41 PM on May 5, 2011

If Obama just said, "Welp, turns out, dude's been dead this whole time," he and his predecessors would have some 'splaining to do.

If last Sunday, Obama had announced that definitive evidence had been uncovered proving that ObL died fleeing from Tora Bora, that would have required explaining? I think that lots of people thought it was possible, even likely, that he was already dead. Confirmation of this wouldn't have been a life-altering surprise.
posted by me & my monkey at 3:43 PM on May 5, 2011

nickyskye, I *do* think you're a conspiracy theorist, and I think you should listen to what It's Raining Florence Henderson just said about "placing too much credence in rather old declarations from probably trustworthy sources." Your citation from Dale Watson -- who says "probably," not "definitively" -- was from 2002. You yourself think OBL has released videos since then.

Random decade-old speculations don't refute what happened last week. For that you'd have to explain not only explain why the Obama administration decided to lie, and why all the other governments of the world and all the relevant players are backing them up, but also why Al Qaeda, and bin Laden's own daughter, agree his was just killed. Why do you rank Dale Watson's personal speculations from 2002 as equivalently convincing as all that?
posted by gerryblog at 3:45 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Two weapons were in reach. He was known to be constantly armed.

I'm still not getting after 24 SEAL are on the property, 12 in the house for 28 minutes, 4 or 5 deaths, and a helicopter crash why he only had his guns "in reach" and not in his hands.

It doesn't make sense.

Maybe he shot himself...
posted by atomicmedia at 3:50 PM on May 5, 2011

Come to think of it, bin Laden was left handed, and the shot entered the left part of the skull.

They probably couldn't show the picture because that would give away the type of gun/projectile used (the Russian handgun?) and then had to dump the body so that no evidence of his suicide would ever get out.

There, that's my conspiracy theory!
posted by atomicmedia at 4:00 PM on May 5, 2011

Where does the "28 minutes" datapoint originate? I think you (atomicmedia) referenced it first, and subsequently said that it was untrue. Is that number accurate? Where's it from?
posted by Alt F4 at 4:01 PM on May 5, 2011

This is not the law for an apprehension of a US criminal. If the crime is a felony, then non-deadly force is required unless probable cause exists that the person would be a risk to the officer or others.

So probable cause of "risk" (deadly?) is all that's required to justify a decision to shoot to kill?

I suppose that must be a factor of the ready availability of guns. Don't want to hamstring the police too much when there's a very real possibility that suspects may be armed. If it weren't for that idiotic right to bear arms the law might be a little less heavily biased towards shooting first & asking questions later.

"The obsessive belief of the US in capital punishment - alone among advanced nations" - must also play a role here, as USians would regard his death at the hands of the state a fait accompli, so hey, why not sooner rather than later? The rest of the civilised world, which opposes the death penalty, would be less gung ho.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:01 PM on May 5, 2011

Random decade-old speculations don't refute what happened last week.

Chief of the FBI's International Terrorism Section is random? No, not reality based thinking. And he never went back on that speculation in all the years since then?

Doubting is not conspiracy theorizing. "Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision...Politics, ethics and law, with decisions that often determine the course of individual life, place great importance on doubt, and often foster elaborate adversarial processes to carefully sort through all available evidence."
posted by nickyskye at 4:03 PM on May 5, 2011

I'm still not getting after 24 SEAL are on the property, 12 in the house for 28 minutes, 4 or 5 deaths, and a helicopter crash why he only had his guns "in reach" and not in his hands.

Because he was lying debilitated in bed, hooked up to a dialysis machine, perhaps?
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:04 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Tolkien: iffy prose style, but a master of disinformation.
posted by tigrefacile at 4:05 PM on May 5, 2011

It's "random" because it's one guy, speaking of his personal guess, nine years ago. A better word for what you're doing would be "cherry-picking"; the vast majority of relevant experts, including the other people who cite, did not share his view at the time and do not share it now.
posted by gerryblog at 4:05 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, you misquote Watson: "I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that." What was that about reality-based thinking?
posted by gerryblog at 4:07 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The number came from quotes saying the raid was only supposed to last 30 minutes, and it went over by 8 minutes. They also said he was shot in the last 10 minutes of the raid.

My "it wasn't 28 minutes" post was because of the MSNBC video which had a completely different timeline on events, stating that most of the time spent there was spent gathering documents, but that seems to be the only source for it, and basically if you believe that video, he was executed.
posted by atomicmedia at 4:07 PM on May 5, 2011

Oh, dear lord - there's a new Beyonce song now, "God Bless the USA". Just fuck off & die.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:07 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

as USians would regard his death at the hands of the state a fait accompli, so hey, why not sooner rather than later? The rest of the civilised world, which opposes the death penalty, would be less gung ho.

As an American who was annoyed with Bush's refusal to work with other nations, I'm more than happy to tell the rest of the world to deal with it on our troops killing Bin Laden.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:07 PM on May 5, 2011

nickyskye, I sure do like you, but you're coming off as nutty here and very much a conspiracy theorist here. Your cries of "doubting" are wholly unconvincing. That is the cry of a conspiracy theorist. "I'm the one who's reasonable here. I'm just talking about my doubts, what's wrong with that?" Unfortunately there is no way to disprove the doubts of a conspiracy theorist, no matter how far-fetched. And, make no mistake, your position here is far-fetched. Instead of using the present, huge disconfirming evidence to question the previous (and old) speculations, you are doing the opposite, and positing that the current administration has invented this whole incident out of whole cloth. I agree that the death of OBL has propaganda value, but your narrative is just whacky.

If you don't want to be taken for a conspiracy theorist in this you might consider taking a hard think about what you're proposing, or not talking about your theories outside of conspiracy circles.
posted by OmieWise at 4:13 PM on May 5, 2011

*will happily endorse assassination of Beyonce*

We should probably also take out Mariah Carey in case she tries to jump on the bandwagon. Hell, let's just get rid of her anyway.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:16 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Bottom line is regardless of the technology aspect if the U.S. intelligence apparatus wanted OBL alive the mission would have been planned and executed as a snatch and grab."

Again - it was. Except killing him was an option. McRaven planned the operation and it was like capturing Hussein except killing Hussein turned out not to be necessary.
Everyone has a perfect plan until they get hit (to paraphrase Dempsey).

The only reason to send humans in is for absolute verification (/prev. covered upthread). But there are a number of options that would result in a positive ID that don't require shooting him personally.
You don't risk that kind of engagement if capture isn't an option. This is 101 level stuff.
The only way OBL winds up shot at close range is if there is a capture option.

"Frankly, I don't think the USA would have any friends left anywhere after doing something like that."

Uh, 134-odd strikes with give or take 900 casualties last year alone
against upper echelon cadre. It's on wiki for god sake, look at the size of thelist.

"Because officials of your government have described it as a "kill" mission;"

I thought our government officials lie to us.

"Well for one it's illegal and second it's immoral. We don't assassinate criminals in this country we arrest them and put them on trial according to the rule of fucking law"

We do, in fact, 'assassinate' criminals when they return fire on law enforcement. Once a squad comes under fire, they may return fire on the scene using their own judgment.
Nidal Malik Hasan was shot at Ft. Hood. He survived, but it wasn't for lack of trying to kill him (shot him five times).
Countless other examples.
But those are under controlled circumstances - as a police officer (in the U.S.) you are within the secure territory of your own country.
Being behind someone else's border is a gigantic variable.

But I have no interest in debating tactics, you clearly don't understand them or what's allowable in even a criminal apprehension in an IARD or by SWAT operators who can lug bulky bulletproof shields around with them.

And none of that really matters anyway.
The fact is OBL has attacked military targets in force (apart from the terrorist bombings). There were mujaheddin fighting in the Balkans (how f'ing delightful that was). By his own terms what he's fighting is a war.

I can't think of any possible circumstance under which he does not have command responsibility for war crimes at the very least.
It makes no sense not to target him as the foreign commander of a belligerent combatant and so a legitimate target to open fire on.
(If we're going off on LOTR tangents, why any Gotham police officer doesn't immediately open fire on the Joker is beyond me. The man is known to carry concealed poison gas as a matter of course. "And why did you unload your pistol on the Joker and go back to your car to finish him off with a shotgun officer Friendly?" "Uh, because he's the fucking Joker, sir." "Ah, right. Well, good enough, carry on.")

But I have no interest in debating the morality of assassination. We did in fact try to assassinate him before. With missiles. We delegated assassination attempts. 11 years ago the Pakistanis tried it.

It's completely a moot point. We - clearly, yes - wanted to assassinate him and have tried many times. End of story.
But in this particular case - there's no practical reason to put your people in harms way just to shoot someone in person.
Too many ways to do it in an easier manner. (Hell, just provoking him to move and drilling everything with sniper fire from long range would be the lounge chair way of doing it. Why go to the mountain? Make it come to you. Or blow the place, zip in, swab, ID in 3-4 minutes, zip out. Simple.)
If you know where someone is, it's far easier to kill them than it is to capture them. Even if you need verification. You don't need a team like this for that.

But if you want to capture them, you do need men to go and get them. 'Need' being the operative word.
I don't know how much clearer that could be.

"The Seals could have easily captured him alive and returned him to the U.S. for trial."

Impossible considering that Seals can be trained to honk horns in a circus.

SEALs might have pulled it off, unless he resisted or the situation on the ground warranted just killing him and taking the body.
But easy? No. It it were easy all the couch riders would be doing it instead of jacking off to Call of Duty.

"I see, but you of course have been involved in numerous military operations of this type? Given that the actual number of DEVGRU members is very small I highly doubt that anyone on metafilter knows anything about the actual capabilities and operating methods of the team that killed OBL"

I can verify longbaugh has a history of very detailed and cogent posts on this topic. But shit, you're not listening to me either though are you? If I'm a member of NASA, I'm f'ing Gene Cernan, and we're talking about the moon landing and I elucidate cogent, reasoned arguments based on demonstrable facts refuting moon landings as a hoax, is there any response you have other than "Well, you're not Neil Armstrong"?

"The fact is that in the past numerous snatch and grab missions have been carried out successfully. Therefore it is not a logical stretch to assume that a similar outcome was possible here"

How clear does it have to be that possible does not equal inevitable? What you put on paper does not always come true in the real world.

"Then, I come home tonight, and see this from Leon Panetta..."

Hyperbole abounds in otherwise measured speaking individuals (Panetta's a lawyer, he was Army for two years tho) when it comes to special operations.

"What if the ISI turned ObL or brought him in somehow?"

That would be encouraging. It would show an at least somewhat enlightened self-interest. Better than going to the limit over any small thing and being prepared to nuke the world.
I think there are a lot of people who have zero grasp of the practical realities of military operations and realpolitick, particularly when it comes to nuclear states.

There are people who are scared shitless (and I'm one of them) when they think of nukes and the example of Chernobyl alone and there are people who think it's possible to 'win' a
nuclear war or at least get away with a limited exchange (I'm inclined to changing their reality with extreme prejudice).
No one knows how to deescalate once we hit that point. And there's no military solution there. If your enemy is a gigantic radioactive fireball, there's no amount of proper preparation you're going to be able to do.

Politically,
posted by Smedleyman at 4:20 PM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

Doubt is an acceptable response, imo, after the US government has repeatedly lied so long and about so much to do with the countries involved in the Big Oil Biz. Doubt was validated when it came to the massive lie about weapons of mass destruction, for example.

I would like further evidence, futher documentation and so would others around the world, including the United Nations chief of human rights.

So that person can have doubts and want full disclosure and not be considered a conspiracy theorist?

OSLO (Norway) - UNITED Nations (UN) human rights chief Navi Pillay on Thursday called for 'a full disclosure of the accurate facts' to determine the legality of the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

'I'm still for a full disclosure of the accurate facts,' Ms Pillay told reporters in Oslo.

'I think it's not just my office but anybody is entitled to know exactly what happened,' she added.

'The United Nations condemns terrorism but it also has basic rules of how counterterrorism activity has to be carried out. It has to be in compliance with international law,' she said. -- AFP
posted by nickyskye at 4:23 PM on May 5, 2011

BUt nickyskye, you're doing more than doubting (nothing wrong with doubting). You are also constructing an alternate scenario:

My speculation is that OBL was killed, as Benazir Bhutto stated 2 November 2007 in an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera. I speculate that maybe the US wanted OBL's sons, Hamza, Khalid, Saad and Mohammad, who would have taken over the reins of Al-Qaida?

This is, plain and simple, a conspiracy theory. We have an explanation of events (a theory) and we have a secret plot between the US government and the military to decieve the public and foreign governments (a conspiracy theory).

I understand that "conspiracy theorist" has become a shorthand for "Crazy person," but it's possible to be a conspiracy theorist and not bonkers - just credulous. It's possible for you to be a consipracy theorist without being crazy, and in fact, most conspiracy theorists are not crazy - just very invested in their theory, which they do not want to let go of, and very selective about the evidence they're willing to deal with. So I do think you are engaging in conspiracy theory. I have doubts, but you have more than doubts - you have doubts and a set of imagined circumstances which you have pulled together to contain some of the facts you are focusing on.

I understand the doubts, I understand the likelihood that there's a hell of a lot more to the story than appears, but I don't know what it is and, in fairness, neither do you. I'm content to just stop with the recognition that there is doubt and inconsistency, some of which will become clearer in the fullness of time and resolve some of the doubt, and some of which will likely remain classified for a long time, and I submit that that's a pretty rational stance. I don't mean to be insulting and certainly understand your passion for getting at the nuts and bolts of this unfolding story and for ascertaining as much truth as we can, but I do think that as long as you keep developing and advancing alternative theories of events in the absence of any proof at all, and with some strong evidence for other versions of the story, it isn't something others can be asked to entertain very seriously.
posted by Miko at 4:24 PM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

nickyskye, again you're misquoting. That article says she wants to "determine the legality", not the facticity, of bin Laden's death.
posted by gerryblog at 4:25 PM on May 5, 2011

We should probably also take out Mariah Carey in case she tries to jump on the bandwagon. Hell, let's just get rid of her anyway.

She can jump on my bandwagon... I mean... I'd invade her compound anyday. No... I'd crash my helicopter into her boundry wall... hang on... She was trying to grab my weapon so I shot her prematurely... in the chest and face... Yeah, better just be shot than have it go to court.
posted by Elmore at 4:26 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

Miko, I speculated, have doubts, have offered rational reasons why I think what I do. and others who are in international positions of authority, well educated on international matters also have doubts too. I'm in good company there, will wait for more information.

Sorry my doubts are a bother to you. :)
posted by nickyskye at 4:27 PM on May 5, 2011

I'm wondering if perhaps the reason they won't release the photographs is because bin Laden was, er, "subject to enhanced interrogation" before being killed. (or perhaps even died from torture, rather than being shot.)

No proof, just a little devil on my shoulder whispering one possible reason they might be embarassed to show the state of the body.

I don't particularly blame nickyskye for being somewhat doubtful, since they do appear to be hiding SOMETHING, but I don't personally think it's bin Laden's identity. I'm pretty convinced they killed him on May 1, right where they claim they did, but I'm suspicious he didn't die quite how they claim, and that probably NONE of the claims on that score are terribly accurate.
posted by Malor at 4:28 PM on May 5, 2011

The Obama administration had given numerous, conflicting accounts of the raid this week, and it is possible these accounts will be revised yet again.
posted by nickyskye at 4:31 PM on May 5, 2011

have offered rational reasons why I think what I do.

The thing is, no, they're not all that rational. They're pretty unlikely.

Sorry my doubts are a bother to you. :)

Aw come on, that's a non-apology apology, and it feels misplaced here, especially from you. I'm not in a position to be bothered, exactly, about anything you've said; I've not been harmed, so there's nothing to be sorry for (and especially no reason for you to be sorry for how I have chosen to view your arguments).

And it's not your doubts I'm addressing, anyway. I think you can see that almost everyone in this thread has doubts that we have the full narrative, myself included, and I've said so repeatedly. We agree that there have been numerous conflicting accounts; in this thread I've argued that (a) that's normal for a huge and complicated story that just happened not that long ago and (b) that some of it will eventually be resolved and confirmed and some won't, and we have to live with the fallout from the event regardless, and that (c) it's rarely productive, socially or politically, to nurse theories that are not gaining solid ground among significant numbers of reasonable adherents. What I'm addressing are the unlikely scenarios you're constructing and your interest in some older facts that don't seem to have gathered support with the test of time - in fact, they seem to have grown weaker in light of more recent events.

And Brandon Blatcher, DAMMIT, I can't believe I mixed that up. Again.
posted by Miko at 4:37 PM on May 5, 2011

Doubt is an acceptable response, imo, after the US government has repeatedly lied so long and about so much to do with the countries involved in the Big Oil Biz.

let us assume for a moment that the raid is a lie and bin laden was howard hughes'd.

why and to what end. to boost morale? did pakistan give up OBL in a secret deal so the u.s. stops it operations inside pakistan?

what would be gained.
posted by clavdivs at 4:39 PM on May 5, 2011

will wait for more information.

This is the basic course of action I recommend and am pursuing, especially for laypeople like ourselves (most of us anyway).
posted by Miko at 4:39 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Obama administration had given numerous, conflicting accounts of the raid this week, and it is possible these accounts will be revised yet again.

Could you please explain why this would happen if they're lying about the underlying claim that Bin Laden was killed a few days ago? It would seem to me that if they're making that basic claim up, they also would have made up the details of the supposed raid, and stuck to them.

Thanks in advance.
posted by Flunkie at 4:45 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

There is no way there was enough time for any "enhanced interrogation" technique to work.
posted by rosswald at 4:47 PM on May 5, 2011

Bookhouse writes "IANANS, but I work on a cop show and I've watched a technical adviser train actors in how to enter a building and clear a room. It's possible that Navy SEALs use a totally different technique, but I would be shocked if they went through a window. The idea is to enter any room and within moments have every area from which fire could come covered. You can have a guy with a mini battering ram take down a door, step out of the way and have his teammates flood in with guns at the ready in a matter of seconds. Coming through a window wouldn't allow you that kind of readiness."

Note to self: when designing secret evil lair exterior doors must be equipped with multipoint locks and should open outwards.

atomicmedia writes "The number came from quotes saying the raid was only supposed to last 30 minutes, and it went over by 8 minutes. They also said he was shot in the last 10 minutes of the raid.

"My 'it wasn't 28 minutes' post was because of the MSNBC video which had a completely different timeline on events, stating that most of the time spent there was spent gathering documents, but that seems to be the only source for it, and basically if you believe that video, he was executed."

Even if it was only one minute instead of 28 why the hell didn't he pick up a gun. A minute is a long time.
posted by Mitheral at 4:51 PM on May 5, 2011

And Brandon Blatcher, DAMMIT, I can't believe I mixed that up. Again.

Well if you're careful like me, you wouldn't mess up like that.

/habmerger
posted by cashman at 4:53 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Obama administration had given numerous, conflicting accounts of the raid this week, and it is possible these accounts will be revised yet again.

In the Metafilter thread covering the bombing in Mumbai, you posted numerious updates to the situation. In one comment, there was a report of nine foreigners killed. Later it was six.

Yet the final tally of foreigners killed was 28. So I'm not sure why anyone is too surprised about the conflicting stories and sees it as conspiracy. It takes a while to sort all the details.

And, you never answered inqury for more solid information about Bhutto's statement: "Bhutto doesn't provide any details, just the name of the supposed killer. Can you provide a link for further details?"

I get that you're speculating, but it just doesn't add up in any way, shape or form, so I'm just confused how you got to that speculation. It's fine if you don't want to answer, I'm not trying to rake you over the coals, but I just don't get it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:56 PM on May 5, 2011

Geez, Bhutto made the statement to the international press a couple of days ago. Ask him for more details, lol

Yup the FBI top counter terrorist speculated. And me too. Nobody called him a conspiracy theorist.

a non-apology apology

It's not an apology. It was meant mischievously, heh.
posted by nickyskye at 5:06 PM on May 5, 2011

Yup the FBI top counter terrorist speculated. And me too. Nobody called him a conspiracy theorist.

The difference is that (1) he openly admitted he had no evidence for his "guess" (2) he did it in 2002, not after OBL was affirmatively reported dead in 2011. If he came out of retirement tomorrow to say "Hey, you know what? My gut tells me I was right when I said he was dead in 2002," you can bet he'd be labeled a crackpost.

Geez, Bhutto made the statement to the international press a couple of days ago. Ask him for more details, lol

I don't know what you mean about Bhutto. The statement made a few days ago assumes the truth of the claim that bin Laden was killed over the weekend. The other Bhutto claim that you've been throwing around as evidence for your "speculations" was made by a different person in 2007, and walked back by that same person four days later. What are you talking about?
posted by gerryblog at 5:19 PM on May 5, 2011

Nobody called him a conspiracy theorist.

You are theorizing a conspiracy, are you not? That, at the very least, the President of the United States, plus various high-level members of the administration and military have conspired to perpetrate a significant lie on the world?
posted by Flunkie at 5:28 PM on May 5, 2011

the President of the United States, plus various high-level members of the administration and military have conspired to perpetrate a significant lie on the world?

Remember "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" as the reason for invading another country? That was exactly an instance of "the President of the United States, plus various high-level members of the administration and military have conspired to perpetrate a significant lie on the world?"

Or how about the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, lies about why the US invaded Vietnam?

If he came out of retirement tomorrow to say "Hey, you know what? My gut tells me I was right when I said he was dead in 2002,"

Well, you can wait for him to do that. :) My wait is simply for more data to come out about this situation.

Osama bin Laden's wife has told interrogators she didn't venture outside the walled compound where the al Qaeda leader was killed for five years

For years there has been speculation about the health of Osama bin Laden. A US official says at this point there is no information to suggest there was medical equipment, such as a dialysis machine, at the compound.

The wife, who was wounded in the raid, said she lived in the compound in Abbottabad with eight of bin Laden's children and five others from another family, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told CNN.

Pentagon Breaks Silence on Pakistani Role

A top Pentagon official said Thursday that Obama administration officials “do not have any definitive evidence at this point” that Pakistan knew that Osama bin Laden was living in a compound in a garrison city only 35 miles from Islamabad
posted by nickyskye at 5:33 PM on May 5, 2011

Note to self: when designing secret evil lair exterior doors must be equipped with multipoint locks and should open outwards.

Note to self: when breaking in to Mitheral's secret evil lair, no need to bring battering ram, as hinges of exterior doors will be on exterior.
posted by dersins at 5:34 PM on May 5, 2011 [9 favorites]

Via the cydonian on Twitter: India had twice told US about Osama's likely presence close to Islamabad
posted by nickyskye at 5:35 PM on May 5, 2011

My wait is simply for more data to come out about this situation.

But that isn't what you're doing; you're alleging significant contradictions in the official story and asserting alternative theories, and then backing off to this position of supposed agnosticism whenever anybody points out the flaws in your thinking. It's called JAQing off.
posted by gerryblog at 5:41 PM on May 5, 2011

Remember "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" as the reason for invading another country? That was exactly an instance of "the President of the United States, plus various high-level members of the administration and military have conspired to perpetrate a significant lie on the world?"

I did not state that what you are theorizing is wrong. I stated that what you are theorizing is a conspiracy.

In any case, though, could you please answer my previous question? You pointed out that the administration's story keeps changing. I assume that you pointed it out because you thought it somehow lends credence to this theory of a conspiracy. So, could you please explain why would it happen, under this theory of a conspiracy?

For example, could you please give me credible dialog to replace the following?

Obama: OK guys, here's the plan, we're going to say we killed Bin Laden. SEALS raided a bunker and shot him.

Clinton: Sounds good. Let's say he was armed and shot at them first so it doesn't seem like we just executed him.

Panetta: And that he was hiding behind a woman!

Weishaupt: His wife!

Obama: Great ideas, everyone. Let's do this thing.

Obama: (to American people) My fellow Americans, we shot and killed Bin Laden. He was shooting back. He grabbed his wife and used her as a human shield.

Obama: (to cabinet) Wait a minute, guys, this doesn't really make sense. Let's say he was unarmed. And didn't use his wife as a human shield.

Obama: (to American people) Well, he wasn't armed. And didn't use his wife as a human shield.

I just don't see it. What plausible event might have occurred rather than simply "Wait a minute, guys, this doesn't really make sense. Let's say he was unarmed. And didn't use his wife as a human shield"?
posted by Flunkie at 5:44 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

gerryblog, After noting so many discrepancies and conflicting reports coming out of the handful of people who supposedly witnessed the killing of OSL on a screen at the time it was happening, I was asked in this thread why I had doubts and I expressed my thoughts. This does not seem to be cowardly and I don't appreciate you calling me a coward for having doubts.

I offered you "an instance of "the President of the United States, plus various high-level members of the administration and military have conspired to perpetrate a significant lie on the world". I don't know what is the truth of this situation and people like one of the chiefs of the UN are also asking for more proofs, more evidence, more transparency. I don't think that's cowardly, just commonsense.

Very cool infographic: The Death of a Terrorist: A Turning Point?
President Obama’s announcement Sunday night about Osama bin Laden’s death produced an outpouring of reaction. We asked readers the following questions: Was his death significant in our war against terror? And do you have a negative or positive view of this event? Readers — 13,864 of them — answered by plotting a response on the graph and adding a comment to explain the choice. Each light blue dot represents one comment. Darker shades represent multiple comments made on a single point.
posted by nickyskye at 5:49 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Osama bin Laden had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. He took me to his cabin and he told me his secret. "I am not the Dread Pirate Osama" he said. "My name is Ryan; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Osama, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Osama either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Osama bin Laden has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Pakistan."
posted by kirkaracha at 5:52 PM on May 5, 2011 [7 favorites]

It's not an apology. It was meant mischievously, heh

Okay, thanks for the clarification. It was really hard for me to tell that was meant to be a mischievous joke instead of the usual snark folks mean when they use a construction like "I'm sorry if you felt insulted," especially in such an earnest thread.
posted by Miko at 5:52 PM on May 5, 2011

but they might see the big board
posted by clavdivs at 5:53 PM on May 5, 2011

nickyskye, I didn't call you a coward, and I didn't write that wiki entry. Sorry you took it that way, as it wasn't my intent. But "just asking questions" is a favored rhetorical posture among denialists, and it's definitely the pose you've adopted in this thread.

people like one of the chiefs of the UN are also asking for more proofs, more evidence, more transparency

Again, as I pointed out to you earlier, the UN person you're quoting is asking for evidence to determine the legality of the raid, not the facticity of it. That person believes the raid really happened and Osama bin Laden really died last weekend.
posted by gerryblog at 5:57 PM on May 5, 2011

the handful of people who supposedly witnessed the killing of OSL on a screen at the time it was happening,

It was already discussed in this thread that they might not have seen anything you could describe as "witnessing the killing;" the content is characterized as "receiving updates." I don't think we know exactly what the content was yet or how it was presented. (Please correct me if I'm wrong).
posted by Miko at 5:59 PM on May 5, 2011

After noting so many discrepancies and conflicting reports coming out of the handful of people who supposedly witnessed the killing of OSL on a screen at the time it was happening,

I was a juror on a five-week murder trial a couple of years ago, and none of the witness accounts of what happened - including testimony from disinterested witnesses who didn't know any of the people involved - matched in anything but the broadest brush strokes.
posted by rtha at 6:01 PM on May 5, 2011 [4 favorites]

NYT Alert: Data From Raid Links Bin Laden to Newer Terror Plots
posted by rosswald at 6:06 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

You know what the best thing about today was?

bin Laden is still dead.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:06 PM on May 5, 2011 [11 favorites]

I just don't see it. What plausible event might have occurred rather than simply "Wait a minute, guys, this doesn't really make sense. Let's say he was unarmed. And didn't use his wife as a human shield"?

The best that I personally have been able to come up with, incidentally, is:

"If we keep changing our story about the details of what happened, with no obvious reason for why we would change it in the ways that we do, it will make most people think that the people who are really onto us are actually crazy."

I don't really find that particularly believable, though. Can you come up with a better reason?
posted by Flunkie at 6:08 PM on May 5, 2011

...OR WAS HE
posted by gerryblog at 6:08 PM on May 5, 2011

What would the religious ramifications and the political reverberations if Bin Laden committed suicide.

Even though i don't believe my conspiracy theory, just wondering…
posted by atomicmedia at 6:17 PM on May 5, 2011

Merely pointing out past conspiracies doesn't mean that there is a real Osama-didn't-die-this-past-weekend conspiracy out there. Inconsistencies in the story also don't mean that there was a conspiracy - if anything, it shows the opposite, as emerging and conflicting details are a normal part of memory and news development, whereas a consistent story is sometimes suggestive of witness-coaching or the equivalent.

Watergate was completely different because it was a cover-up - a spectacularly unsuccessful one.

The Iraq War buildup was different because almost all of the neocons believed in their own bullshit. They went in flimsy evidence of WMDs because they really did think they could find WMDs. They also saw Iraq as part of a larger plan where the US would be welcomed as liberators for getting rid of Saddam, and then the US could install a pro-Western (nominal) democracy which would signal to the rest of the Muslim world that playing nice with the US means we'll help you and playing mean with the US means you get hanged like Saddam. Having access to all that oil would have also been nice. They thought that (nominal) democracy would be a success in Iraq and would be contagious as a meme throughout the Muslim world. This was all disastrous, and the planning was also disastrous, but it wasn't as simple as the neocons wanting oil, so they made up and excuse to go grab it - if it was only oil they wanted, they would have traded for it. Even in a best case scenario, it would have been cheaper than going to war over it.

The deceit revealed in the Pentagon Papers did not deal in the kind of vivid, falsifiable, discrete facts like a specific, world-famous individual's death.

Being skeptical of OBL's death is all well and good, but it's not really skepticism - it's an affirmative belief in a different narrative, one in which Obama and dozens of other individuals are actively pretending that something happened when it did not. This narrative has deep problems, including not only a lack of evidence in its own right, but also in that this narrative contradicts such things as the IT guy who accidentally live-tweeted the raid and the Al Qaeda source who confirmed to the AFP that Osama is dead.

While it's certainly possible that we're all having our legs pulled, that's sort of a far-fetched idea, and I think it would be more useful to critique the dominant ideology of our neoliberal whoziwhatsits. There's a reason why truthers and birthers are associated with stagnant, politically useless wings of the body politic, and it's not just because people think they're crazy - trying to "feed" an unprovable conspiracy theory consumes your entire existence.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:21 PM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

We're all sitting in relative comfort, and we can't even agree on what the term "conspiracy theory" means. I don't find it surprising at all that uncovering something approximating the truth in a complex, charged situation like a firefight is going to be complicated. I actually find it more likely that we're getting a glimpse at a "real" fact-finding process based on the case that we haven't been presented with a simple, clear, easy story to swallow.

As a very sceptical person, I have nothing but admiration for questions and doubts. But part of the onus of the sceptic is to not simply replace the official story with another equally unverifiable one, and especially if the new theory is even less likely, and has almost no supporting evidence. If I say, "I don't know exactly what happened. Let's wait and see," or even, "I don't trust and believe you, let's wait and see where the evidence points," that's scepticism. If I say, "I don't trust you, I'll bet this other way less likely thing happened instead based on some comment someone made once," that's not really scepticism. That's faith. Something else entirely. You certainly have a right to that, but you'll have a hard time arguing for it based on logical merits, is all, because it's not really a logical argument, it's about what sources you choose to trust, and why.

On preview: As for other's comments about whether OBL committed suicide, I think that is a possibility. The second shot was just to be sure.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:24 PM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

It was already discussed in this thread that they might not have seen anything you could describe as "witnessing the killing;" the content is characterized as "receiving updates." I don't think we know exactly what the content was yet or how it was presented. (Please correct me if I'm wrong).

In this case, I'll go out on a speculative limb. I'd wager they were watching a split screen view of eight helmet cams. It seems silly that they wouldn't.

(I'd further wager that there were some bricks shat when that chopper went down. Boy howdy.)
posted by Trochanter at 6:31 PM on May 5, 2011

ABC news video offer details on handwritten notes found at the raid, with plans to derail trains in the US on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, potentially killing hundreds.

Also, his compound was stocked with Nestle Quik, Coke, Pepsi, hairdye... and lots of young kids.
posted by markkraft at 6:58 PM on May 5, 2011

What happens to his money? Who replenishes it? If his family is doing so from Saudi Arabia, how are they not held accountable. Questions...questions...

The AQ network has been such a huge scary mystery for so long, I'm eager for as much discovery and destruction of it as possible. It would seem with the cache of information OBL had more can be done to obliterate it in the next year, than has been possible since Dubya decided his answer to them would be to attack Iraq. A country that had fuck all to do with 911, but you know, that's how Neocons roll. But much like WWII it always takes some Democrats to destroy monsters and save the world. While the GOP is collectively sitting around with it's thumb up its butt.

Man, I am loving spending time on some of those gung-ho fool egg on their face Right-wing loser blogs right now....
posted by Skygazer at 7:10 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's fun for like 15 seconds, until they begin to say Bush and Seal Team Six deserve most of the credit.
posted by Skygazer at 7:16 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

now there is a rap song about it
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:20 PM on May 5, 2011

In this case, I'll go out on a speculative limb. I'd wager they were watching a split screen view of eight helmet cams. It seems silly that they wouldn't.

This may be sarcasm but I keep seeing this idea that the SEALs were transmitting helmet cam video in real time and it strikes me as hugely unlikely. I mean, the bandwidth required just seems outrageous, even for relatively low quality video. And while on this mission it might not be a huge risk but the idea that SEALs or other special forces go out with something mounted on their heads that's transmitting a constant signal saying "Here I am" doesn't seem realistic to me. I know they have helmet cams but I've always assumed it was for post-mission debriefs, not real time analysis. Does anyone know for sure that the helmet cams even have transmission ability? I assume they had UAV's overhead, although that imagery probably wouldn't have been very interesting once the SEALs got inside.
posted by macfly at 7:23 PM on May 5, 2011

"But much like WWII it always takes some Democrats to destroy monsters and save the world. While the GOP is collectively sitting around with it's thumb up its butt. "

Give me a break. They were *very* busy!

(Someone had to make a buck on the deal!)
posted by markkraft at 7:35 PM on May 5, 2011

now there is a rap song about it

I saw that earlier, and yeah he's right when he raps this song is dumb. The animation is somewhat humorous though.
posted by cashman at 7:36 PM on May 5, 2011

Live feed helmetcam is not at all difficult to do. You can buy the consumer version from HobbyKing.com. There's a bunch of relays involved in a case like this but there's no difficult in doing it and the equipment is neither bulky nor particularly expensive.
posted by unSane at 7:37 PM on May 5, 2011

Not having any personal experience or direct information to lead me to believe otherwise, I assume OBL was indeed plugged by a SEAL team a few days ago.

That said,

>Massive conspiracies are always the absolute least likely explanations, because they ironically rely on way too much unwaivering trust and competance to be successfully perpetrated by mere humans.

reminds me of a larger point.

It's frequently observed that Conspiracy Theory X is unlikely because secrets will always out, and someone will "talk".

But "talking" is never the issue. If one digs hard enough, you can find people swearing solemnly to watching David Atlee Phillips and David Ferrie genetically cultivating the second Oswald from green cheese harvested from the tenth hidden moon of the Sirius system.

You can find any number of people averring to any number of hypotheses, for two reasons:

1) People, even qualified people in important positions, do become convinced of crazy or at inaccurate things.

2) Conversely, powerful people and powerful organizations actually sometimes do crazy or highly unlikely things, particularly when the potential rewards are substantial.

The question, then is not what a naif, a fanatic, or a whistleblower will assert or "tell the people"-- it is what the general public will choose to believe.

And generally, people believe the new data that best comports with their existing beliefs, or which stretches their existing beliefs least while also giving them the thrill of having learned a little bit more-- such a discovery giving them a satisfying feeling of superiority over the Sheeple next door.

What matters is not revelation, but credibility.
posted by darth_tedious at 7:42 PM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

I like my sheeple braised in a wine reduction. In case anyone was wondering what to get me for Father's Day.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:55 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

now there is a rap song about it

Oh man.

He really must really actually be dead then.

Woot.
posted by Skygazer at 8:10 PM on May 5, 2011

Watergate all boiled down to a piece of duct tape.
posted by clavdivs at 8:21 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Note to self: when designing secret evil lair exterior doors must be equipped with multipoint locks and should open outwards."

*Applies linear thermite cutting charge to door to draw fire/coordinate with frame charge explosive breeches through roof and water tamped Mk4 frame charges on walls*

SURPRISE!
Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! etc.

There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door; and those that explode holes through the walls - to paraphrase Tuco.
(Also, 'just a harmless squirrel, not a plastic explosive or anything' comes to mind)

I don't know why Obama hasn't released photos. I would speculate it's his leadership style to not be crass and exploitative. But we've come to expect that so much we're completely surprised when someone doesn't drag their enemy Achilles-style around the walls.
*shrug*

But if anything we (in the U.S.) derive far more general welfare benefit from this event, which has the effect of winding down the 'War on Terr' (in addition to Obama eschewing the term) than other conspiratorial events.
I mean, Cui Bono? Bushco made a killing in the Iraq war. Obvious there. Enron, obvious. Wannasee, obvious. An October surprise, obvious, but this is May. Iran-Contra ... bastards got his own t.v. show.

Conspiracies typically benefit a small group of folks in the know rather than the general population. So if it is a conspiracy, it's a pretty goofy one.
On the other hand a bunch of punks (Prescott Bush among them) tried to get Smedley Butler to lead a coup. The CIA paid hookers to dose unsuspecting people with LSD. The CDC gave 400 black men syphilis. So anythings possible.
But some things are more or less likely.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:26 PM on May 5, 2011

I think waterboarding can be morally permissible in certain extreme circumstances.

Like when you think maybe it might help you kill Bin Laden, eight years later?

It's hard to imagine what wouldn't justify torture, if that's where you set the bar.
posted by steambadger at 8:46 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

The problem with torture, as has been said repeatedly, is that you can never really trust the results. Which is why I never ask my victims any questions.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:49 PM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

In the subcontinent, we don't allow the property records to show the actual price paid for the land/building.

The usual practice is to split the payment into black (cash or some other form of off-the-record transaction) and white (legally shown price). Tax is only paid on the "white" part. Both sides of the transaction prefer such arrangement.

That's from my own assessment in previous comment. A new report in The Independent (UK), sourced from a local official, says that "no property tax was ever paid" on bin Laden's property.
posted by vidur at 9:08 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Obama administration had given numerous, conflicting accounts of the raid this week, and it is possible these accounts will be revised yet again.

To me, this is a result of everyone--the press, the public, other countries--wanting to know exactly how it went down, and only some of the people actually being in the loop for knowing the details. You'll note that a lot of the conflicting stories come from "high-ranking officials" or "sources within the Administration" who DON'T WANT TO BE IDENTIFIED.

So, I am right with you as far as the skepticism regarding the details of how bin Laden was killed. But I do believe he was killed May 1st, because the preponderance of evidence tells me this must be so.

And I am only really giving credence to reports put out by sources who are willing to be named.
posted by misha at 9:10 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

i am osama bin laden - i have a very thick skull and am an excellent swimmer

that pyramid termite guy? - sucks to be him right now, doesn't it?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:15 PM on May 5, 2011

Maybe keep your paragraph-long musings on recreational flogging to your blog.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:18 PM on May 5, 2011 [3 favorites]

That's from my own assessment in previous comment. A new report in The Independent (UK), sourced from a local official, says that "no property tax was ever paid" on bin Laden's property.

Welcome to the New World. Does this not define our era? Our demand for 1950's certainty, coupled with the ability to find out if property tax was paid on a specific parcel in Pakistan. Is it a surprise that conspiracy theories take root in soil such as this? i
posted by Ironmouth at 11:18 PM on May 5, 2011

It occurs to me that 90% of this thread is based on two things: the gap between the ability of a modern state to announce that an event has taken place and its ability to get information to the press; and the imagination of the information saturated public.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:29 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Some of this thread is based on genuine philosophical differences. Some of it is based on the fact that very senior US government officials who had been in the actual operations room repeatedly lied to the public about what had happened. This is why you originally thought that Osama had been armed - in fact you thought he attacked the US troops. You also thought he refused to surrender. When you combine this deceit with the other implausible stories about the DNA evidence, the disposal of the body and so forth, you have lots of reasons for people to reach different conclusions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:37 PM on May 5, 2011

Vidur's link Inside the house Osama called home includes a plan of the house as submitted by the original architects - bear in mind that the house as built may be different.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:40 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

No living rooms? What a strange house
posted by mumimor at 11:45 PM on May 5, 2011

BTW, keep in mind that what Americans call "third floor" is usually called "second floor" in the subcontinent. Just thought I'd mention this before this "inconsistency" gets pointed out.
posted by vidur at 11:49 PM on May 5, 2011

Welcome to the New World. Does this not define our era? Our demand for 1950's certainty, coupled with the ability to find out if property tax was paid on a specific parcel in Pakistan.

And yet some of the Old World remains. It's reasonably safe to assume that the property tax information was held in piles of chai-stained manila folders tied with red ribbons, stacked precariously to the ceiling on filing cabinets still bearing embossed "On His Majesty's Service" monograms.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:01 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Joe doesn't seem to understand that you could put everyone in that room and ask them the same question, only to get twenty different answers. Their initial response regarding the intel they were getting back from those on scene could've very easily been "We got him?! That's great! But what did all that chatter during the mission mean?"

Politicians aren't soldiers... especially elite combat teams. They try to familiarize themselves with people in general, but that doesn't mean they know the intricacies of running a mission anymore than they know the intricacies of semiconductor fabrication. It can take years of experience to properly interpret such things, and frankly, if you're not there actually watching and experiencing what's going on, you just don't know.

And all of these leaders/politicians, and all the other various "anonymous government source"s we've heard from in the press who heard something from someone who heard something from a general who talked to a Colonel who talked to an information officer who was at the base the mission was run out of, who talked to the mission commander, who quite possibly could've downplayed or deemphasized anything questionable that might've gone down which they think is essentially meaningless, but others might frown upon, based on some heat-of-the-moment decision made by one of the soldiers on scene... well, the basic fact is, until the official report comes out -- which, frankly, will be no more accurate than your average police report, and quite likely a bit less -- we have to deal with a lot of stories and a lot of conflicting information, with a fair amount of discrepancies. And yet, the push is on by the press, because they want the facts *NOW* when it's still good for their business... not that they'll actually feel compelled to report much, once the exact facts are known, because by then, the news cycle will be all about the Shakira scandal.

In other words, it's not so simple, especially when it involves politics and perception. Suck it up and deal with it. If you want consistency, Joe... well, next time, stick with Republican talking points.
posted by markkraft at 12:03 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Did no one ever see Rashomon, or at least the 90,000 TV shows that had a Rashomon episode?
posted by dirigibleman at 12:09 AM on May 6, 2011 [5 favorites]

BTW, keep in mind that what Americans call "third floor" is usually called "second floor" in the subcontinent. Just thought I'd mention this before this "inconsistency" gets pointed out.

Just wait until the Pakistani officials start explaining what happened, naturally using cricket metaphors - the spin will be so deceptive that the Americans will be stumped.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:11 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Markkraft wrote: And all of these leaders/politicians, and all the other various "anonymous government source"s we've heard from in the press who heard something from someone who heard something from a general who talked to a Colonel who talked to an information officer who was at the base the mission was run out of, who talked to the mission commander ...

I'm talking about the claims made by Leon Panetta, the CIA Director. I understand that he was in the Operations Room, so his information is as good as that received by the President himself. How did he imagine that bin Laden was armed and firing at US troops and refusing to surrender? Isn't that an extraordinary error for someone in his position?
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:20 AM on May 6, 2011

THIS ELIMINATION OF BIN LADEN WAS A FARCE! WHY DID THEY SPEND SO MUCH EFFORT TRACKING DOWN & KILLING THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED MAN INSTEAD OF COORDINATING THEIR PR MESSAGES?!??
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:32 AM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

About doubting – doubting is a good thing, we know that. A lot of us have been educated to be critical of what we see or hear. But sometimes I think that education has had two sides. Everyone knows it’s good to doubt, but only few have learnt any methods of critique. I see this with academics as well as with non-academics, with experienced journalists as well as with children.
One thing, which is glaring on this thread, is the insistence that we can’t ever trust government. Well that’s true. But it is a truth with scales. You can’t completely trust the Norwegian government, of course, but compared to the Libyan government, it is very trustworthy. The same with different US administrations: it is not reasonable to argue that because Bush lied about WMD, Obama will lie about OBL.
I am not saying the Obama administration never withholds information, or never lies. But there is a profound philosophical and ideological difference between Bush and Obama, and this makes it much more difficult for Obama to deliberately misinform the public. In short: for Bush, it never hurt his relationship with his base that he and his administration lied. It is part of conservative ideology that politicians lie, and that lies can be necessary in politics. All or most of Bush’ lies were fully exposed before election-day 2004, and it didn’t make a difference.
As easily read in this thread, the same does not apply for liberals. If this is a giant hoax, it will be exposed soon, and Obama’s core voters will stay home next year, convinced that the world is an evil place. He cannot afford that, which is why his administration is trying to be transparent in this case.

A hoax or conspiracy will be exposed, because they always are. Any observant person knew there would be no weapons of mass destruction, long before the war in Iraq. Heck, most of the people I know who were defending the theory knew it was a big lie, but they were conservatives, and believed it was a “noble” lie, serving the greater cause of removing a bad guy.

In thoroughly corrupted countries, the web of lies and conspiracies can be so thick, no one can figure out the truth. That doesn’t mean the conspiracies aren’t exposed. It means that each layer of exposure only reveals a new layer of lies, making it hard to find a coherent order of things, even for those in power. I believe Pakistan is such a country, and that the USA is not. (But I do believe the US is a lot more corrupt than is good for anyone, scales again).

The discussion of whether this was a deliberate assassination or not is not really a conspiracy theory in my view. It is a fair, and very difficult question. But arguing this question through imagined versions of what happened is on the level of conspiracy theories. Honestly, we cannot know, and we will never know exactly what happened, both for good reasons and bad. The only people who know are those who were there, and I’m guessing Navy Seals and 13-year old girls will have very different versions.
Because of how the US works, in some years we will have documentation of the presidents orders. Till then, all will be speculation.
posted by mumimor at 12:41 AM on May 6, 2011 [4 favorites]

Just wait until the Pakistani officials start explaining what happened, naturally using cricket metaphors - the spin will be so deceptive that the Americans will be stumped.

Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesperson: So, you know, this American Seal came running in Right Arm Over (the carbine) while Osama was crouching at the Second Slip and Osama's daughter was hiding behind a curtain at Silly Point and his wife was at Short Leg. Naturally, his wife charged down the Pitch towards the Seal and was promptly Yorked, even as Osama dived to his right towards Third Man. Another Seal who was covering his coworker from Long Leg misinterpreted the dive for an attempt to steal a Run and instinctively did what any good Seal would do - he ran Osama out with an accurate throw.

Questions?

posted by vidur at 12:42 AM on May 6, 2011 [4 favorites]

CIA living in Abbottabad, too
posted by mumimor at 12:56 AM on May 6, 2011

But the shifting narrative may have distracted from the accomplishments of the Seal team and raised suspicions

Many of the discrepancies at the White House came from the man who has been part of the Bin Laden hunt for 15 years, John O. Brennan, the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser.
------
Abbottabad invasion/kill was not 1st US ground op in Pakistan. Sept. 2008, troops raided in S outh Waziristan area- drew fury from Pakistan army then, too.

The intelligence official's revelation comes after what Pakistan said was a September 3 incursion by U.S. forces into the country. A senior U.S. official said last week that U.S. helicopters dropped troops in the village of Angoor Adda in South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan
---
CIA director Leon Panetta: President Obama did not see the shooting of Osama Bin Laden on a live video feed.
---
Hamza [OBL's son] was also implicated in the murder of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, who had named him as a leader of one of the Al Qaeda-linked groups of assassins planning to kill her.
---
That's because every USB storage device has its own serial number, which can be retrieved from any computer to which it's been connected. "You're able to track that USB device in every system it's touched," said Lee. That may help analysts better understand how the courier network operated, especially if the storage devices match up with previous PCs that they've encountered.
---
Mr Balko observes that America's reaction to Mr bin Laden's monstrous piece de resistance on September 11th, 2001 "fundamentally altered who we are" in ways that should make us pause at least a moment before raising our tiny America flags
---
The nation [Pakistan] hates America with the percentage of around 80 percent. With the same percentage the people think Osama was a hero of Islam.
---
Reflections on the Killing of a Terrorist
---
This [killing of Osama bin Laden] is clearly a deal between the US and Pakistan. What we don’t know are the terms of the deal.
---
Johann Hari: The real meaning of Bin Laden's death
---
According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al Watan, which quoted "an internal regional source," internal disputes between bin Laden and al-Zawahiri allegedly led American troops to the hideout in Abbottabad.
posted by nickyskye at 1:14 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

"I'm talking about the claims made by Leon Panetta, the CIA Director. I understand that he was in the Operations Room, so his information is as good as that received by the President himself. How did he imagine that bin Laden was armed and firing at US troops and refusing to surrender?"

Well, I presume that a lot of it would have to do with the confusion at the time. There was a period of 20-25 minutes after the helicopters landed and the firefight began where they didn't see anything going on and couldn't really tell what was happening,which was ongoing throughout the building. In an interview on Tuesday with PBS, he clarified things by saying that he didn't believe OBL fired, at least once they were on the third floor -- presumably, he could've fired down beforehand -- but "threatening moves were made"... presumably the wife who got shot, maybe OBL himself. Keep in mind, this was ongoing during a firefight that presumably had lasted about twenty minutes already, with soldiers being shot at with automatic weapons. Nerves were high.

Apparently, the soldier who fatally shot Bin Laden also wounded his wife, who charged him. It's being reported that OBL couldn't reach his weapon, panicked, and shoved his wife at the soldier in question.

Really, they all could've used 24 hours to wait for a post-mission briefing... but they're all busy people, and presumably had to get back to their jobs.
posted by markkraft at 1:32 AM on May 6, 2011

Questions?

How is he?
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:37 AM on May 6, 2011

Another thing to note... this mission started at 3:30 pm EST, which is 12:30 am in Pakistan. The helicopters in question can be surprisingly low-noise, and it's entirely possible it was conducted with night vision and stealth, as much as possible, with the goal of maintaining the element of surprise. Which, frankly, the opposition appeared to be. There was some gunfire in the compound... but the whole place had thick walls, too. There are reports that perhaps only one person managed to fire back during the raid. Reports are that OBL was surprised, and simply panicked at the last moment.
posted by markkraft at 1:40 AM on May 6, 2011

Juicy New York Times article with a few videos included: worth reading: Latest Updates on the Killing of Bin Laden

Today’s Financial Times reports that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the broader “war on terror” (which includes expenditures at the Department of Homeland Security, for example), U.S. tax payers have spent at least $2 trillion in response to Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks.

The economist and Columbia University professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, however, has put the costs of the Iraq war alone at well over $3 trillion.
---
whoa. Bin Laden's wife spent 6 years in Pakistani house. It was not only just the house she hadn't left for 6 years, she hadn't left the same room for 5 years.
---
uh oh. Evidence at bin Laden’s home raises nuclear concerns

Mr. Rothman said al Qaeda operatives in 2009 “came within 60 kilometers of what is believed to have been Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal,” though he could not elaborate on the incident.

“Our major concern has not been that an Islamic militant could steal an entire weapon but rather the chance someone working in [Pakistani government] facilities could gradually smuggle enough fissile material out to eventually make a weapon and the vulnerability of weapons in transit,” said the cable, which was released Wednesday by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

posted by nickyskye at 1:47 AM on May 6, 2011

Questions?

How is he?

I guess we could say that he has ...
[puts on sunglasses]
... Retired Hurt.
posted by vidur at 1:54 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Damnit, I missed the LoTR derail And after I went to all the trouble to put on my robe and wizard hat.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 2:08 AM on May 6, 2011

An infographic about American response to this event and some images of Navy SEAL dogs
posted by nile_red at 2:10 AM on May 6, 2011

Wow. From nile_red's last link: "The U.S. military often replaces a working dog's teeth with titanium fangs, capable of ripping through enemy protective armor."
posted by Alt F4 at 2:29 AM on May 6, 2011

After reading the conspiracy theorists' posts that compare this supposed deception to the Bushco claims of WMDs used to invade Iraq, I'm left wondering what you theorists think is the end game for this conspiracy?

Invading Pakistan, maybe? Suicidal and I can't imagine that there would be any positive gain from seeing several of our battalions vaporized in a nuclear retaliation. Cutting off their $2 billion in funding? Not bloody likely, between the likely regime change that would occur and the US military-industrial complex's lobbying to keep one of their customers well funded.

Invade Iran, maybe? Not sure how you can draw the lines connecting OBL's death conspiracy to them. Besides, Ahmadinejad has apparently had to resort to using black magic to stay in power. And we all know how that turned out for Saruman.

Keeping oil prices high to benefit the big petroleum producers' bottom line? Again, not sure how a conspiracy would affect this.

Maybe to give us a plausible reason to disengage in Afghanistan and Iraq? Hell, if that's the case then you could postulate that Oprah and her book club minions stormed Tora Bora ten years ago and killed him by throwing neti pots at him and I would cheer you on and subscribe to your newsletter.

Defunding the TSA and DHS and returning our civil rights to us? Again, if you could figure out a way that a conspiracy would lead to this, good on you.

Thing is, I've been scratching my head over this since the first claims of conspiracy went up in this thread and I can't figure out who or what would benefit from it. Nobody would go to all this trouble for something that doesn't gain them some positive outcome in the end. I guess you could make the point that it will positively affect Obama's poll numbers but if that was the case, don't you think that the republican regime would have trotted this out when they were in power to ensure their candidates' victories in 2008? So yeah, it's great that you have conspiracy theories til the cows come home. But please tell me where they lead, because I'm very tired of wearing a bald spot in my pate.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 2:39 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

"The nation hates America with the percentage of around 80 percent. With the same percentage the people think Osama was a hero of Islam. "

Please note: this is not a scientific poll, only bullsh*t conjecture. The actual numbers are closer to 60%, and the reasoning is more complex. Meanwhile, the Taliban are increasingly unpopular.

A more recent poll before OBL showed 47% supported increased efforts against terrorists, vs. 37% who didn't. The info I'm seeing since OBL indicates increased frustration with the government's inaction vs. terrorism, as OBL was caught in their midst.

They don't love the US, and they'd like to be treated with respect, but they don't want terrorists, don't want a corrupt government, and don't want all the heat coming down from the US, which may seem somewhat justified, considering. Really, though, they're more concerned about economics than politics, with many reporting increasing prosperity.
posted by markkraft at 2:40 AM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Link to Pew Report featured in markkraft's second link (I have to rethink what I posted earlier, after learning that
More than eight-in-ten support segregating men and women in the workplace, stoning adulterers and whipping and cutting off the hands of thieves. Roughly three-in-four endorse the death penalty for those who leave Islam.
It is in this same report it is claimed that less than 20% hold extreme views. But I guess everything is relative..)
Another nice Pew Report
posted by mumimor at 3:05 AM on May 6, 2011

More than eight-in-ten support segregating men and women in the workplace, stoning adulterers and whipping and cutting off the hands of thieves. Roughly three-in-four endorse the death penalty for those who leave Islam.

Mutatis mutandi, you could probably find some oddly similar statistics in bits of the Bible belt.

I keed, I keed. A bit.
posted by unSane at 4:36 AM on May 6, 2011

I keed, I keed. A bit.

Not so much, really. 46% of Mississippi republicans think
interracial marriages should be illegal.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 5:05 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

they're actually called pew pew reports. At least the ones about fighting.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:13 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm talking about the claims made by Leon Panetta, the CIA Director. I understand that he was in the Operations Room, so his information is as good as that received by the President himself. How did he imagine that bin Laden was armed and firing at US troops and refusing to surrender? Isn't that an extraordinary error for someone in his position?

Have you ever played the children's game "telephone"?

I'm certainly not claiming that this is what happened, but something like the following seems at least plausible to me:

Actual reality: SEALS are fired upon. A bunch of wives and children are present. A wife is killed. Guns are near Bin Laden. A woman goes in front of Bin Laden, and is shot in the leg. Bin Laden is killed.

SEAL speaking informally to military higherups anxious for answers on the radio on the helicopter flight back: "We took fire but no casualties. We shot Bin Laden, he's dead. Four others dead including a wife or something. Bin Laden had weapons near him. Woman jumped in front of Bin Laden, we shot her.

Military higherups to higher military higherups, moments later: Bin Laden's dead! Plus a wife and a few others. There was a firefight but no American casualties. Bin Laden himself had weapons. One of the wives was in front of him.

Further up, moments later: Bin Laden's dead in a firefight, he was armed and using one of his wives as a human shield.

Various administration officials, including some unnamed and speaking off the record, to the press, combine to say: Bin Laden is dead! He was hiding behind his wife and firing on Americans.

SEAL is formally debriefed

Debriefers to military higherups: Uh, wait a minute here....

Again, I'm certainly not saying that that's what happened, and it's obviously oversimplified dialog and such. But I find something like that to be plausible. Do you not?

And in any case, can you please explain a plausible explanation for it under your theory of "deceit" and your claim that "very senior US government officials who had been in the actual operations room repeatedly lied"?

If they're lying about the fundamental heart of the matter - that they just killed Bin Laden -- why would they say that he was firing back, then say he was not? Why would they say he was using his wife as a human shield, then say that a woman who may not have been his wife jumped in front of him?

If they're lying about having killed him, then it didn't happen either way - he wasn't killed while unarmed, and he wasn't killed while armed. He wasn't killed behind a woman who jumped out, and he wasn't killed behind his wife who he grabbed. So what made them change their story?

What possible revelation did they become afraid of that made it seem to them that "he was unarmed but had guns near him" would make their lies hang together better than the original plan of "he was firing back"?
posted by Flunkie at 5:24 AM on May 6, 2011 [4 favorites]

The Obama administration had given numerous, conflicting accounts of the raid this week, and it is possible these accounts will be revised yet again.
Could you please explain why this would happen if they're lying about the underlying claim that Bin Laden was killed a few days ago? It would seem to me that if they're making that basic claim up, they also would have made up the details of the supposed raid, and stuck to them.

Perhaps they were anticipating this very argument. One might expect that conspirators would make up a single story and stick to it, so they decided to keep changing the story in order to make it not look like the conspiracy that it was.

Disclaimer: I don't actually believe that this is what happened. But it is an explanation of why there might be a changing story if the this was all made up.
posted by klausness at 5:25 AM on May 6, 2011

klausness, yeah, I actually put forward that possible explanation myself, after none of the people who are theorizing that a conspiracy occurred tried to answer my question (and, I think, none of them have still).

As I said at the time, I don't actually find that particularly believable. I certainly don't find it as believable as the idea that the killing really did occur, and initial reports filtered through several layers of people aren't as accurate as formal debriefings.

But I admit that I don't have any actual evidence against it; I just don't think it's particularly believable. I am still interested in hearing a better explanation than mine from anyone who does believe that a conspiracy occurred, and that Bin Laden was not just killed in a SEAL raid.
posted by Flunkie at 5:38 AM on May 6, 2011

Al-Qaeda 'confirms Osama Bin Laden dead'
posted by mumimor at 6:02 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

That still won't be enough for the conspiracy nuts.
posted by grubi at 6:40 AM on May 6, 2011

But I admit that I don't have any actual evidence against it; I just don't think it's particularly believable.

Oh, definitely. If you were such a cartoon villain as to plan in a bunch of revised stories to make your secret mastermind plot look real, you'd make them so much more innocuous than these questions. These are major revisions; I agree they are most probably artifacts of imperfect realtime multiparty communication.

I do have one speculative idea that will not go to the mat to prove but have tossed around in my head, but it's about the livetweeter @ReallyVirtual. Having someone "inadvertently"livetweet the raid, with such posting density, in such an "oh, bother, the helicopters are disrupting my IT work" way, really seemed to good to be true even as it was unfolding. I know he has a pre-existing identity but it is interesting to see that the CIA has also maintained a presence in this town for some years running and that this person arrived in the area relatively recently also.

The idea doesn't bother me in the least - that's the kind of thing we pay those folks to do - but it does seem interesting. Anyway, it could be totally legit, but it was one element that drew my attention. As I said, I'm also perfectly willing to believe he's a normal guy. No real evidence either way, and none could be expected, as proving someone is not a spy is pretty hard to do.
posted by Miko at 6:46 AM on May 6, 2011

Al-Qaeda 'confirms Osama Bin Laden dead'

That's just what they'd want us to think!
posted by mazola at 6:47 AM on May 6, 2011

Well, they're obviously in on it.
posted by unSane at 6:47 AM on May 6, 2011

I wouldn't trust them..
posted by Skygazer at 6:56 AM on May 6, 2011

Yesterday on NPR (ATC) they said, citing "intelligence sources", that the Americans had been planning to abscond with bin Laden family members, but the loss of one of their helicopters forced them to abandon that plan for extra passengers.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:17 AM on May 6, 2011

Al-Qaeda 'confirms Osama Bin Laden dead'

"The statement published on jihadist web forums said an audiotape would be released of the al-Qaeda leader speaking a week before his death.

One of those times I'd love to see Reddit go searching for where this was first posted and by whom.
posted by cashman at 7:21 AM on May 6, 2011

Perhaps they were anticipating this very argument. One might expect that conspirators would make up a single story and stick to it, so they decided to keep changing the story in order to make it not look like the conspiracy that it was.

Disclaimer: I don't actually believe that this is what happened. But it is an explanation of why there might be a changing story if the this was all made up.

For some people, wheels within wheels.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:46 AM on May 6, 2011

Al-Qaeda 'confirms Osama Bin Laden dead'

You have to admit this raises a lot of questions.

"The U.S. military often replaces a working dog's teeth with titanium fangs, capable of ripping through enemy protective armor."

Wait, this actually does raise a lot of questions. That's insane.
posted by gerryblog at 7:47 AM on May 6, 2011

Questions like, "Where do I get a dog with titanium fangs?!"
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:51 AM on May 6, 2011 [9 favorites]

Fuck that, where do I get titanium fangs?
posted by grubi at 7:54 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pfft! My fangs are adamantium. You gotta keep the upper hand with your cyborg stooges, or they chew you up and spit you out.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:01 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

OK, so titanium is a legitimate material in dog orthodontia (just as, you know, humans get gold crowns and such). And police dogs have been given metal teeth, partly as economical replacement (vs. the whole dog) and partly for appearance/intimidation's sake, but WIRED's Danger Room reports that the SEAL dog story is false.
posted by dhartung at 8:59 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

nickyskye writes "Mr. Rothman said al Qaeda operatives in 2009 “came within 60 kilometers of what is believed to have been Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal,” though he could not elaborate on the incident."

This seems like one of those numbers that is supposed to be scary but probably isn't. After all millions of Americans must have been with 60 kilometres of America's nuclear arsenal even if you exclude active duty members.
posted by Mitheral at 9:01 AM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fuck that, where do I get titanium fangs?

but WIRED's Danger Room reports that the SEAL dog story is false.

Actually the technology exists and it has been in the hands of regular rappers since at least 1994.
posted by cashman at 9:07 AM on May 6, 2011

from the bottom of the page:

Related Posts
There's a vicious rumor going around that Mitt... May 1, 2011

has titanium canine teeth
posted by Ironmouth at 9:08 AM on May 6, 2011

"The statement published on jihadist web forums said an audiotape would be released of the al-Qaeda leader speaking a week before his death."

Oh, that's nothing. The Scientologists will sell you an audiotape of their leader speaking a week after his death.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:11 AM on May 6, 2011

"titanium canine teeth" is the new "in bed" or "under the sheets" fortune cookie game.

"You will meet a stranger..." "...with titanium canine teeth."
posted by grubi at 9:11 AM on May 6, 2011

the SEAL dog story is false
Buzzkill!

No, I'm not calling you names, I was talking to my dog, Buzz. Short for Buzzsaw. I figured out how to mount the titanium teeth on a flat mandrel, and I've powered it off the static from the dog's fur. Keeping the chaindrive lubed was a problem at first, but then I just installed the unit in a Saint Bernard. The saliva and snot keep those teeth spinning like a shark in a disco.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:12 AM on May 6, 2011

Fuck that, where do I get titanium fangs?

In my life, I've had to have some pretty extensive dental work done, and quite a few years ago I had this conversation with my dentist:

"So, I was reading that titanium is readily accepted by the human body which is why they use it in bone-pins and the like"

"Yeah?"

"(in a joking voice) So if I wanted, I could get all my teeth replaced with titanium?"

"(considers it seriously) Yeah. It would cost a lot, because they'd have to be individually made, but I don't see any reason we couldn't do that."

In summary, you want titanium fangs? Walk into the right dentist with a handful of cash, and they're yours.
posted by quin at 9:41 AM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm having a very hard time seeing the downside to that. Plus, airport security would be a laugh.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:55 AM on May 6, 2011

In summary, you want titanium fangs? Walk into the right dentist with a handful of cash, and they're yours.

What would happen if I chewed aluminum foil with my titanium teeth? Would my brain explode?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:01 AM on May 6, 2011

Now I'm wondering if I should have the iron and brass parts of my anatomy replaced with titanium. They're starting to rust and turn green, respectively. Also, maybe it's finally time to have that sixpack upgraded to a pony keg. Or maybe a whisky barrel. I have an extra one that came with the Saint Bernard.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:08 AM on May 6, 2011

Titanium Teeth
posted by atomicmedia at 10:26 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

He used his wife as a human shield.
He was armed.
There was a huge firefight.

Understand I'm not saying bin Laden wasn't a baddie who killed thousands. Of course he was. I hate having to add on this disclaimer, but it seems necessary when questioning the official story. Here: bin Laden was grade-a super-douche, taking him out was good for American interests.

But attributing the errors in the official story to simple misunderstandings and confusion seems wrong, because so many of those errors are tilted towards the needs of the administration to push the agenda that the killing was lawful and justified.

Regardless of how you feel about target assassination: it's always justified, sometimes justified, justified only in this case, never justified, etc. Regardless of that, the official story is troubling because once those initial stories are out there, they will spread and be taken as true. Even if later on it's proven they are false.

Later stories (like the planned train attacks) will overtake the SEAL operation story, and people won't really follow-up on what happened.

"So what?", you're asking, so what if bin Laden's name gets a little more trashed? Well, it all adds up, small things like this have an impact on defense spending, homeland security, the rule of law. And when it finally comes down to it, I think an honest picture of reality is preferable to a hyped-up one, regardless of how well it fits the new American mythology.
posted by formless at 10:40 AM on May 6, 2011 [4 favorites]

Keep in mind that we're dealing with a geometric increase in the bullshit factor here. You have the witness, who has their own viewpoint to defend. They tell their initial story to their boss, who has their own agenda plus whatever political agenda they've been officially ordered to support plus whatever political agenda they've been quietly suggested to support. 20 superiors read the report. Each of them has... blah, blah, blah. Then the reporter reads a fifth generation declassified glossy version, and then makes up whatever the hell shit they feel like.

Like the stories we're talking about, my paragraph above contains both truthful and hyperbolic statements. I can't tell you which are which, either.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:50 AM on May 6, 2011 [4 favorites]

Regardless of that, the official story is troubling because once those initial stories are out there, they will spread and be taken as true. Even if later on it's proven they are false.

This is certainly true, and I was thinking about that earlier today. But I don't think there is a mountain of meaning in the difference between the initial and revised reports. And that's where the problem would be. In years past this was problematic because the gulf between what was initially reported and the later truth was massive. Not him having a gun on him versus it being a few feet away. Do you tell the police a person is armed if you know they have multiple weapons in their home? If I say, okay, Bin Laden's wife ran at the troops versus he used her as a human shield, do I now think something measurably different regarding OBL? The guy made it no secret to say he was happy to see people dead - so what does the revised information do to my opinion? If it was a firefight vs u.s. troops doing the vast majority of the firing, does that make me think anything drastically different? I pretty much think, hey, these guys are good at what they do, and they were skilled enough that they neutralized (read: killed people) threats so effectively there was a seriously minimal amount of fire directed at them.

Given that Rachel Maddow said she would kill him with a spoon if she could....Barbara Walters said she didn't care if he was sleeping between two puppies....I think you may be overestimating the effect of the information gap between the initial and revised reports. At least for many in America. Well maybe besides Rashard Mendenhall. I'm not counting thought exercises, which would have come about even if u.s. forces had given him an overdose using pain meds.
posted by cashman at 11:28 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

That would be a brandy barrel not whiskey. We must have facts people.

so, why did the team take a dog along. Was the dog an officer with a high clearance and i want to see his uniform. Little pouches for bones and doo-doo bags, prolly his poncho and silent ninja doggie footpads.
posted by clavdivs at 11:31 AM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

This thread proves one thing for certain - can't get rid of Palin, unfortunately.
posted by cashman at 11:33 AM on May 6, 2011

Why did the team take a dog along?

To help find hidden passageways, subdue unarmed but resisting targets and because he'd finally saved up sufficient frequent flyer miles.
posted by longbaugh at 11:38 AM on May 6, 2011

Also, rereading the President's address and thinking about his statements to 60 minutes for Sunday's episode regarding not releasing the images, I wonder if the "That's who we are/that's not who we are" message is going to continue forth for a while. It is an interesting way to address ridiculous actions and laws that are out of bounds or seek to reverse societal progress.
posted by cashman at 11:42 AM on May 6, 2011

> This thread proves one thing for certain - can't get rid of Palin, unfortunately.

That's not who you are. Yes you can!
posted by de at 11:47 AM on May 6, 2011

But here's the problem. Almost every one of the initial false reports vastly over-emphasized the almost cartoon-like villainy of bin Laden. Here are just some of the since retracted examples:
He used his wife as a human shield.
He was armed.
There was a huge firefight.

The reports from two sources are that he acted confused and pushed his wife at the soldiers and that there were two weapons at his feet, a Makarov pistol and the AK-47. I can understand Brennan getting all excited. He's chased the man for 15 years.

Believe the third one was likely a deliberate lie to cover up the fact that they spent the vast majority of the time in the compound taking documents and they didn't want Al Qaeda to know that.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:08 PM on May 6, 2011

This thread proves one thing for certain - can't get rid of Palin, unfortunately.

Why would anyone want to? Palin/Trump 2012!
posted by narwhal bacon at 12:20 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

This image is just too disturbing to share with the American people
posted by nickyskye at 12:28 PM on May 6, 2011

If I say, okay, Bin Laden's wife ran at the troops versus he used her as a human shield, do I now think something measurably different regarding OBL?

Another thing is, and I hope this isn't opening up a whole sexism can of worms, but what on earth was his wife doing charging the SEALs? Why didn't OBL hide her or grab her to shield HER? She's half his age, she's a non-combatant (until she charged the SEALs I guess), and she didn't plan all the attacks that let to the raiding of the compound. Plus her daughter was reportedly right there. Nasty situation.

I mean it comes across as cowardly on OBL's part, either way. Unless he'd just woken up, having missed the helicopter landing and the gunfight, and the wife took action before he could get his wits together (possible, but seems unlikely). The wife was a collaborator, no doubt, but she was hardly the criminal the SEALs were after.

(I favor women in combat, fwiw. I just don't favor allowing a civilian woman who married OBL at what? 17? 19?, bore his babies, sequestered herself in his room for years, and so on, acting as his final line of defense against armed SEALs. That's kind of disgusting.)
posted by torticat at 12:29 PM on May 6, 2011

Believe the third one was likely a deliberate lie to cover up the fact that they spent the vast majority of the time in the compound taking documents and they didn't want Al Qaeda to know that.

I'm sorry, I can't believe that. What should Al Qaeda assume? That the team didn't have an order to take any documents or intelligence encountered in the operation? That would imply a gross incompetence on the part of our intelligence agencies.

And admitting that there was an order to gather intelligence, the only real issue is how much did they gather?

But that doesn't really matter. One of the tenets in computer security is that once you've been compromised, the entire system is suspect. I assume the same applies for physical security procedures. Al Qaeda has no way of knowing what info was taken, so they must assume all the info was taken.

There are a much better reasons for the lies about the firefight, including the relatively benign "geometric increase in bullshit" social theory It's Raining Florence Henderson's proposed. But disinformation targeted at Al Qaeda regarding intelligence gathering probably isn't one of them.
posted by formless at 12:33 PM on May 6, 2011

"Can we at least see OBL's driver's license photo? :D"
posted by nickyskye at 12:35 PM on May 6, 2011

It would be another Daniel Pearl, no?

Only tangentially related to your point, Ironmouth, but Andrew Sullivan had a brief roundup the other day of some readers' comments. I hadn't really thought of how US custody of OBL could lead to threats to Americans around the world. Speculative, of course, but interesting:

And then there's this: what do we do when American citizens around the world start disappearing, kidnapped by radicals who demand bin Ladin's release in exchange for the lives of their kidnapping victims? How many more grainy video tapes of innocent Americans being decapitated by Islamic radicals are we willing to put up with?
posted by torticat at 12:39 PM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Not that I should expect sense from anybody associated with this bum, but I love how AQ's statement about OBL being dead is all "ohh! but why didn't you attack him on the battlefield like a man!". Uh, and cubicle farms in new york are a battlefield?

"Can we at least see OBL's driver's license photo? :D"

Yeah that does kind of raise a point. Surely he had some personal documents around. They could release those, cause there is no way those could be faked.
posted by cashman at 12:39 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

By describing the discrepancies as "lies," you are making the same mistake they did. You are assuming as true an inference that you have drawn: in your case, that these discrepancies are the result of a willful decision to not tell the truth, as opposed to something more "benign".
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:40 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

You know what, torticat? That's a good point.
posted by Trochanter at 12:41 PM on May 6, 2011

It raises the question of why there hasn't been that sort of thing going on for a decade to attempt to force an exchange of some kind for the gitmo prisoners.
posted by Trochanter at 12:43 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I seem to have double C&Ped the comments from Andrew Sullivan's readers. The correct link should be this. (I'm double-checking on preview.)
posted by torticat at 12:46 PM on May 6, 2011

By describing the discrepancies as "lies," you are making the same mistake they did. You are assuming as true an inference that you have drawn: in your case, that these discrepancies are the result of a willful decision to not tell the truth, as opposed to something more "benign".

Actually, my original statement didn't use the word lie. I used it in response to Ironmouth, who first used the word lie. I was careful to not use the word lie in my original statement. It seems that the idea of willful deceit may be accepted by multiple sides now.
posted by formless at 12:55 PM on May 6, 2011

Actually, my original statement didn't use the word lie. I used it in response to Ironmouth, who first used the word lie. I was careful to not use the word lie in my original statement. It seems that the idea of willful deceit may be accepted by multiple sides now.

Doesn't mean the fantasy thay the SEALS could see through his clothes with super-secret goggles to see that he was unarmed. The rest has been put to bed by multiple-sourced info regarding the assault.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:01 PM on May 6, 2011

Dozens of people in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad have been arrested because of their suspected connections to the compound where Osama bin Laden was shot and killed, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.

First suspected drone strike in Pakistan since bin Laden raid; 12 dead | US drone attack kills 15 in Pakistan tribal area

The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge the covert CIA drone program in Pakistan

>At protest in Abbottabad, a few hundred men march down street. One sign says: "The world's biggest terrorist, USA."
posted by nickyskye at 1:01 PM on May 6, 2011

First suspected drone strike in Pakistan since bin Laden raid; 12 dead

"12 suspected militants were killed in the assault in the Data Khel region of North Waziristan, one of the seven districts of Pakistan's volatile tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The drone, an unmanned aircraft, attacked a militant hideout and a vehicle carrying militants."

Check out the 60 minutes report on U.S. piloted drones (August, 2009) for anybody who hasn't seen it already.
posted by cashman at 1:16 PM on May 6, 2011

Bin Laden raid intel yields leads on al Qaeda No. 2 al Zawahiri

Source: 2.7 terabytes of data recovered from bin Laden compound

The compound did not appear to have been used as a nerve center or a command and control post, but analysts are looking further to determine the extent of bin Laden's involvement in day to day decisions and long-term strategy.

More pics of the compound area. | More pics of the compound, area etc

Odd trivia of th day. Abbottabad is also known as Home of Piffers (in Urdu the letter f is often pronounced/switched with the letter p. So FFers, Frontier Force Regiment, FFers for short, would be spelled Piffers but pronounced fiffers)

Obama victory lap marks critical military moment for the president

Interesting: Pakistan Military Knew About Bin Laden Raid Well In Advance Of Attack

Bin Laden's Courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, Had Several Responsibilities

a number of local residents have confirmed to the BBC that they were visited by Pakistani army personnel two hours before the attack commenced, ordering them to switch off the lights inside and outside their homes and instructing them to stay indoors until they were informed it was safe to come out.
posted by nickyskye at 1:39 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm amazed how ugly the house and coupound is and how horribley run down it appears. If I was to guess I'd say the house was 25+ years old not 6 years old. The Wall especially looks much older in places where parging has fallen off the underlining brick structure. Has anyone seen any indication that at least part of the wall is much older than the structure?
posted by Mitheral at 2:14 PM on May 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Cute: OBL Hide-n-Go Seek Champion of the Year.

New York subway riders. USA Chant Fail - Video
posted by nickyskye at 2:14 PM on May 6, 2011

Obama thanks, awards team in bin Laden raid -- "'Job well done,' president tells them during Fort Campbell visit."
posted by ericb at 2:16 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Interesting: Pakistan Military Knew About Bin Laden Raid Well In Advance Of Attack

Wow.

So, in this scenario, the US claims not to have informed Pakistan, in a deal to save face for Pakistan's government and military officials?

And Pakistan accepts the embarrassing narrative (and then publicly reacts negatively to it), out of fear of backlash from radicals?

Not saying it's not possible, but that's some crazy politicking going on there.
posted by torticat at 2:22 PM on May 6, 2011

Shouldn't bin Laden be hide and seek champion from 2001-2010? He, uh, lost in 2011.
posted by Justinian at 2:24 PM on May 6, 2011

Photo evidence OBL is dead.
posted by nickyskye at 2:25 PM on May 6, 2011

I'm amazed how ugly the house and coupound is and how horribley run down it appears.

Yeah, it's a dump. It looks like some painters were called in but they spilled red paint everywhere and just gave up.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:26 PM on May 6, 2011

Some of Nickyskye's links in recent posts (but not the last one), and this link in another thread, remind me of a core issue in this discussion, and all other discussions about "US imperialism". Time and time again, the US enables and aids corrupt or totalitarian regimes in suppressing their own populations. Actually, if one looks at the entirety of oppressive states in the world, the only ones who can manage suppressing people all alone are the ones with rich natural resources (think oil-nations), or with strategic aid from one or more of the US' competitors (several African nations, partially funded by China, or Russian client-states). Cuba and North Korea are outliers here, and look how they are doing.

Oftentimes, the elites of these countries are educated in the US or in the UK. They look like us and they sound like us, they are nice to spend time with, and they seem to have similar values. And I have friends who really do share western values, and who never ever participate in anything political in their countries of origin. But the political and military elite, they just don't. Not at all. Well, maybe they share the values of American radical conservatives or corrupt Italian heads of state, but they don't share ordinary western middle class values. Because their entire US-sponsored raison d'etre is to suppress the people of their own nation.

Americans may find it unfair that Pakistanis blame the US for their misery. But is it? If the USA hadn't sent Pakistan billions in military aid for decades, how would it look? Like Bangladesh? Or like Afghanistan? Or better, like India? We'll never know.
We mostly see this from the Western point view - as in oh no, we have created a monster - but how does this look from a Pakistani civilians point of view? It looks like unlimited and randomly executed power to the military, no rule of law, in the so-called tribal areas: no access to education or health-care.

I've been thinking a lot about this, because recently I was in a panel about another Muslim country, and I hesitated before using the term "tribal" about some of the citizens of this country.
Everyone else in the panel just urged me to say the word - that's the term we use. But I felt that the adult audience, hearing the word "tribal", would sit there imagining images from old encyclopedias, showing Native Americans in feathers, or African kings on thrones made of skulls. The word tribal, in many ears, sounds both romantic and primitive. As if people are from another race, where things like schools and clinics don't make sense anyway.
I was right, it turns out. After the debate, a man came up to me and asked why I thought it would be a good idea to introduce real money and modern services into "tribal" economies. After all, these people are best off living close to nature....
posted by mumimor at 2:28 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

"More than eight-in-ten support segregating men and women in the workplace, stoning adulterers and whipping and cutting off the hands of thieves. Roughly three-in-four endorse the death penalty for those who leave Islam."

Yes, but... to a certain extent, they're supporting the status quo beliefs in their culture. I suspect you'd find similar levels of support for caning in Singapore, or the death penalty in many parts of the US.

Men and women are already routinely segregated in the workplace, and with high unemployment, it becomes a much bigger deal, sociologically, to let women have jobs... especially when the religious right are using Pakistan’s social fragmentation to inflame passions on issues that are framed in religious or theological terms in order to control the political agenda.

“There has to be a much more tolerant Pakistan because everyday issues are sweeping up people’s lives, and those everyday issues are structured in inequalities that are getting more and more aggravated and deep. And when that happens, your passions inflame much easier. It’s not as if Pakistan does not have major structural and economic problems, and we really need to focus on those in the days ahead.”

There are some positive signs that Pakistan is gradually becoming more tolerant, and that radicalism is less acceptable. Obviously, US raids into Pakistan can be polarizing, but the point is, most Pakistanis just want to get along and to take care of their families.

It's pretty commonplace for Pakistanis to feel that if people just talked to the violent radicals in their midst that are engaging in foreign and domestic terrorism and bringing down the heat... or if they are allowed to control Waziristan, Afghanistan or basically anywhere else where they don't personally cause trouble for the rest of the country -- then everything would be okay.

Of course, they're wrong. It's an appeasement mentality. And frankly, I think we're seeing more Pakistanis beginning to realize that the extremists aren't going to calm down and be non-violent without being thoroughly beaten first. They don't want more of their leaders assassinated, and a plurality feel pretty good about the government cracking down on them even harder, even though they don't want the US doing the same in their country, for obvious reasons.
posted by markkraft at 2:28 PM on May 6, 2011

If you take the nukes out of the equation I'd be happy to leave Pakistan the hell alone, even if I was scared of another 9/11, but the nuke thing makes it too dangerous when we can't trust any of the public institutions in the country.

In general I agree that less US involvement would reduce the extremism that leads to this fear, but I can't see how to get from the status quo to the point where I would be okay with that.

We should have laid off the drone strikes for a little bit though.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:35 PM on May 6, 2011

I find the idea that Pakistan's government knew about the raid ahead of time, not only believable, but entirely likely.

Anyone remember this from Dec. 1, 2010?
WikiLeaks: Pakistan quietly approved drone attacks, U.S. special units
posted by markkraft at 2:36 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yes, torticat, I suggested some of that upthread.

The Pakistanis were caught between a rock and a hard place. No escape. Turn in Osama and get massive, violent retaliation from all the countless fundies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, right next door. Pakistan is packed with the Taliban now. It'd be a serious mess.

Not turn in Osama and they still got arms from the USA but earned our distrust...Either way the Pakistani government was in a bind. Double bind.

So the Pakistani gov needed to hide their part in this, as the US needed to hide our involvement with the Pakistani gov. Lots of hidey hidey. That's international politics as usual and one of the great reasons WikiLeaks is very needed, certainly one of the reasons I value the new, increasing transparency.
posted by nickyskye at 2:38 PM on May 6, 2011

Markkraft, I think we agree.
I heard today on the radio that the Pakistani government has used the "war on terror" as an excuse to cut huge areas completely off from the rest of the world. A man interviewed explained he hadn't seen his family for four years, because he was outside this zone. He also told the journalist that his younger brother had been injured in a drone attack, and had his foot amputated. The interviewee claimed this could have been avoided with access to basic medical services. I believe him. But even if it wasn't true, the fact that he and his family thinks so is a catastrophe for the cause of liberal democracy.
Obviously, the only school available to the same little brother is a Saudi-funded madrassa. Not a likely place to learn that stoning is wrong, or that women should have equal rights.
posted by mumimor at 2:40 PM on May 6, 2011

That should be: Markkraft, I think we mostly agree. It's night here
posted by mumimor at 2:45 PM on May 6, 2011

yes, clandestine services place a premium on hidey-hidey.
posted by clavdivs at 2:49 PM on May 6, 2011 [2 favorites]

There are some positive signs that Pakistan is gradually becoming more tolerant, and that radicalism is less acceptable.

Tunisia
Egypt
Libya
Algeria
Bahrain
Syria
Iran
posted by clavdivs at 2:55 PM on May 6, 2011

Yes, torticat, I suggested some of that upthread.

So you did! Thanks for pointing that out. There's a major political and ethical problem, I suppose, related to how far western nations should go in conniving with the accommodation of radicals.

I guess what I find most interesting is that Pakistan's official position in this whole thing is quite humiliating. Either they were ignorant of OBL's presence, and relied on the CIA's renting a nearby house to investigate and confirm it (!!!), or they were complicit. Neither option is flattering. But to choose as their public story that they were ignorant.... well, ouch.
posted by torticat at 3:12 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

Believe the third one was likely a deliberate lie to cover up the fact that they spent the vast majority of the time in the compound taking documents and they didn't want Al Qaeda to know that.

I'm sorry, I can't believe that. What should Al Qaeda assume? That the team didn't have an order to take any documents or intelligence encountered in the operation? That would imply a gross incompetence on the part of our intelligence agencies.

It would be interesting if the "changing" narrative was intentional. This operation was planned for months, and it is kind of hard to believe that they didn't think about this scenario ahead of time. Perhaps all of this inflammatory language about "intense firefight" and "wife as human shield" was meant to fill the vacuum with as much noise as possible while they translated documents.
posted by rosswald at 6:15 PM on May 6, 2011

Worth watching: The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Peter Finn and Greg Miller discuss the domestic and international ramifications of the killing of Osama bin Laden. (Produced by Jason Aldag and Anup Kaphle)

“We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?”

OBL was also missing two toes "from a war wound suffered in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union"

Bin Laden's (Fictional) Mountain Fortress

What was in medicine chests at bin Laden compound?

“Quite honestly, there’s nothing here that indicates a long-term, chronic condition,” Reilly said.

> Most of the journalists and visitors to the compound were already taking the smaller wreckage pieces as memorabilia that day oops.

"The first thing that stood out, and it may seem like a small thing, is the color scheme. Whereas most Black Hawk Army helicopters are painted olive green, this particular one is gray. Not just any gray; it's infrared-suppressant gray, and the purpose of the IR gray, as it's known, is to help reduce the vulnerability of the helicopter to ground-launched heat-seeking missile systems,"

a special high-tech material similar to that used in stealth fighters,

Question to international journalists in Abbottabad: Are you guys being told to leave because of the CIA safe house discovery?

CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house

OBL memes of the week
posted by nickyskye at 7:46 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

My conspiracy theory: they killed Osama — and he was a double-crossed rogue CIA agent! Shazam!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:17 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

for what it's worth, i was in the supermarket buying beer tonight and the cover of the national enquirer says that bin laden was high on heroin when the raid came and cried and begged for his life

enquiring minds have to know, right?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:10 PM on May 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

If he was high on heroin, he probably wouldn't have been crying or begging for his life, but nodding off & rubbing his nose occasionally.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:44 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think this is from one of NickySkye's links, but I want to draw attention to a possible explanation for the speedy burial at sea.

CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house

U.S. officials provided new details on bin Laden’s final moments, saying the al-Qaeda leader was first spotted by U.S. forces in the doorway of his room on the compound’s third floor. Bin Laden then turned and retreated into the room before being shot twice — in the head and in the chest.

This might mean that a SEAL entered the room after bin Laden gone back inside, and the SEAL then confronted bin Laden and shot him. I think a more plausible reading is that he was shot in the back of the head. This would explain why the photos of his face are allegedly so gruesome: exit wounds are larger than entrance wounds. Shooting people in the back of the head is generally seen as dishonorable and people would suspect that bin Laden had been executed, so the US didn't want to allow anyone else to see the corpse.

This theory explains the speedy burial at sea, although it doesn't explain a whole lot of other statements like the ISI claim that bin Laden's daughter says her father was executed after capture, and it makes the claim that bin Laden was shot in the chest a bit hard to understand - unless the exit wound was in the chest, and the speaker was evading the point that the entrance wound was in the back.

If this is the truth then I think it ought to be told - killing a presumed combatant entering an unsecured room sounds like a reasonably prudent thing to do. And, of course, it's nice when governments tell the truth.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:45 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Back and to the left.
Back, and to the left.
Back & to the left.
posted by cashman at 4:43 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

"WASHINGTON — Americans are expected to get a glimpse of Osama bin Laden's daily life with the disclosure of home videos that show him strolling around his secret compound, along with propaganda tapes that have never been made public.

The footage shot at the terror leader's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and the propaganda tapes are expected to be released to the news media Saturday, U.S. officials said.

They are among the wealth of information collected during the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden and four others. The information suggests bin Laden played a strong role in planning and directing attacks by al-Qaida and its affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, two senior officials said."
posted by cashman at 4:49 AM on May 7, 2011

Hey Joe, I haven't agreed with much you've posted in this thread but that sounds like the most coherent explanation of things I've read so far.

I think the whole situation was probably massively confused. There were twenty or so other residents of the house to deal with, it was probably pitch black with the illumination coming from tactical beams etc. Masses of shouting, everyone completely pumped with adrenaline. OBL probably didn't look anything like he does in the movies so there wouldn't have been a positive identification until he stopped moving.

That's always assuming more details don't come out that contradict this latest version.

Coming up with a consistent account of events in situation like this is extraordinarily difficult. You can bet the helmetcam is anything but clear and doesn't jibe 100% with the recollections of people who were there.
posted by unSane at 4:59 AM on May 7, 2011

Shooting people in the back of the head is generally seen as dishonorable and people would suspect that bin Laden had been executed, so the US didn't want to allow anyone else to see the corpse.

Would be plausible, only the US reportedly asked at least one country (Saudi Arabia I think?) if not more to see if they wanted the body, and were turned down. This report could easily be denied by whatever country or countries were contacted. Seems more likely, therefore, that the US Navy did as reported, and interred the body (more or less) within 24 hours according to Muslim tradition.
posted by torticat at 5:29 AM on May 7, 2011

You just mad cause I'm stylin on you. - How Obama really wanted to make the announcement. Let that be in your head to replace whatever travesty Fred Armisen foists on us on SNL tonight.
posted by cashman at 5:57 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Torticat, why would they ask Saudi Arabia if they wanted the body when Osama's family were right there? They've shot the guy, taken a DNA sample - why do they need his corpse? Yes, I've heard the "we didn't want people to make a shrine out of his grave" argument, but:

1) That's inconsistent with the claim that they asked other countries whether they wanted the corpse;
2) Osama's ideological soulmates are really, really against the idea of turning any burial place into a shrine;
3) It's ineffective - lots of dead people are memorialised by cenotaphs;
4) So what if they turned it into a shrine? Who cares what some crazy people choose to do; you've never worried about this before; nobody has made shrines for the bodies of other terrorist leaders; is this really the sort of thing the USA should be worried about?

Incidentally, I'm a bit troubled by the fact that they shot a woman in the leg and then left her behind. I guess if she wasn't hurt badly and they gave her medical treatment on the spot ... but it doesn't look well.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:57 AM on May 7, 2011

The reports about asking Saudi Arabia also said that they asked Pakistan, Joe. Both refused.
posted by Flunkie at 6:07 AM on May 7, 2011

Yes, but Osama's family was right there. They're the next of kin. There was no need to take bin Laden's corpse at all.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:20 AM on May 7, 2011

Torticat, why would they ask Saudi Arabia if they wanted the body when Osama's family were right there? They've shot the guy, taken a DNA sample - why do they need his corpse?

I'm not sure, and I don't even know if the report is true.

I can't really see the Navy SEALs shooting the guy and then just leaving his body there, not with the strained relations between the US and Pakistan. The family was going into Pakistani custody.

I'm guessing that 40 minutes wasn't enough for the SEALs to make a decision about positive ID or appropriate treatment of the body (those decisions maybe didn't belong to them anyway), so taking the body would be the reasonable thing to do.

There are also, of course, reports that they intended to take the whole family, but were unable to do so because they had lost one of the helicopters. So it makes sense that they would take at least the key evidence that OBL was dead.
posted by torticat at 6:24 AM on May 7, 2011

This isn't in response to any particular poster, but just in general: it would be great if there was a chart showing what named officials say in official statements versus what anonymous sources say.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:29 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

A big public funeral with a riot of supporters extolling the deceased and calling for revenge would be as unwelcome as a shrine, pretty much anywhere. It's easy to speculate on why SA or Pakistan wouldn't want that sort of disorder in their streets.

Plus when you take his body along with the intelligence haul you let his associates know where the power lies: we'll shoot you helpless in the night, we'll remove you from the equation and nobody will ever find you. It's a smart move.

I'd speculate that they indeed gave the woman medical treatment before leaving, and she is now in a hospital recovering. But really, so what if they shot her and left her behind? She aided and abetted public enemy number one during his capture and lived to tell of it. That's a mercy.

The current edifice of speculation looks just as good painted with whitewash as it does brushed with tar.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:33 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

people would suspect that bin Laden had been executed, so the US didn't want to allow anyone else to see the corpse.

As many in this thread have pointed out, I really don't think this would have bothered many people. It was always a possibility, and it's not worth covering up. I don't think the "dishonorable" charge would carry much weight at all in the case of this particular person.
posted by Miko at 6:36 AM on May 7, 2011

Yes, but Osama's family was right there. They're the next of kin. There was no need to take bin Laden's corpse at all.

Sounds like the US wanted to dispose of the body themselves, while still putting on a pretense of being respectful. Not a bad thought, but it doesn't seem to have come off well.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:05 AM on May 7, 2011

Looks like they had a swing at Anwar as well.
posted by Artw at 7:13 AM on May 7, 2011

President's future trip to Pakistan in 2011 uncertain.

I love the picture attached to the article. The end is nigh, yall.

2 Muslim leaders removed from plane after pilot refuses to fly them.

I like that it seems to be coming out that really the pilot was the issue here.
posted by cashman at 7:52 AM on May 7, 2011

Pakistani officials say bin Laden may have lived there for more than 7 years.
posted by ericb at 8:33 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes, but Osama's family was right there. They're the next of kin. There was no need to take bin Laden's corpse at all.

What a daft claim. On the one hand, you have controlled outcome. On the other, pandemonium as bin Laden's corpse is martyred and becomes a rallying point.

Your shouting out every possible claim of error and inconsistency, no matter how dumb, is the Cry Wolf story. Don't be surprised when people stop listening to you.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:34 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Foreign Policy article about the deeply ambiguous situation of Pakistan leadership. It notes in passing the mutual duplicity of US/Pakistan relations makes it ambiguous if there was notice of the raid. It seems to me that the evidence is not clear one way or the the other, but the report of army activity in the vicinity before the raid supports prior knowledge.

Over all, there's little evidence in this thread (or the media as a whole) of the sort of breakthrough where people start re-evaluating their earlier beliefs. That's really the most interesting situation, from the analytic perspective; when events compel new policy directions.

That was the real message of the Arab Awakening this spring. It does not seem to be the case here.

That's too bad, since US/Pakistan relations have such corrupt foundations. Fear of a change for the worse continues to poison the chances for a change for the better.
posted by warbaby at 8:38 AM on May 7, 2011

Osama Bin Laden's Anti-U.S. Strategy: Exploit Minority Converts.
posted by ericb at 8:39 AM on May 7, 2011

Five myths about Osama bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 8:41 AM on May 7, 2011

Yes, but Osama's family was right there. They're the next of kin. There was no need to take bin Laden's corpse at all.

yes there was. A very good reason. See, if it were me, I would turn the body over then missle strike the funeral but thats me.
posted by clavdivs at 8:57 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Don't be surprised when people stop listening to you.

Most of us already have, in fact. Not sure why you're bothering to respond to him.
posted by dersins at 9:31 AM on May 7, 2011 [6 favorites]

Ten Myths About Osama bin Laden
posted by merelyglib at 9:39 AM on May 7, 2011

Osma bin Laden: His life in pictures.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:56 AM on May 7, 2011

U.S. officials unveil videos of bin Laden
posted by clavdivs at 10:08 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

new art, no sound.
watching AJ/ watching self.
get to it truthers!
posted by clavdivs at 10:09 AM on May 7, 2011

From the "U.S. officials unveil videos of bin Laden" link:

In one video, bin Laden is wearing what a wool cap with a blanket draped around his shoulders.

Slow down. Take a deep breath. Edit.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:27 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

First thing Monday, I'm buying stock in the company which owns Just For Men.
posted by gman at 10:50 AM on May 7, 2011

Just like when the video of Saddam was shown after his capture, he just looks like an insecure, lonely dude. Saddam looked like a sad old man. OBL looks like a lonely recluse, concerned about looking his best on television, watching DirectTV on a shitty little tv with a power strip hanging from a wall outlet.

Which is of course complete bullshit because he was wives deep in women and even in hiding had a pretty decent house. Almost everybody would agree he spurred on the deaths of thousands and reveled in it.

Going forward, I've seen a couple of conservative news outlets just ignoring these releases, presumably because it puts Obama in a good light and really marginalizes the already quieting conspiracy people.

So I wonder if as time goes on, and they keep putting out this pieces of information and that video, and this piece of evidence, if it will ultimately make the people who clamored for the pictures, look bloodthirsty.

2011 is shaping up to be one heck of a year.
posted by cashman at 11:11 AM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

I see bin Laden staring at that satellite TV channel menu again, and again, and again, rocking back and forth, and I think, this is a man enjoying some kind of drug, maybe opium. This is also a possible explanation for why he didn't grab a gun when the SEAL team arrived.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:19 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

is it me or does the top the text in this thread look...thin. really, I highlight it and it alighns, must be slight bug in the comment meter and the thread length.

I am using my brain,
BURMA SHAVE!
posted by clavdivs at 11:19 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks to the new video released by the DoD, we're now free to deliver you this touching retrospective.
posted by markkraft at 11:24 AM on May 7, 2011

This is also a possible explanation for why he didn't grab a gun when the SEAL team arrived.

I'm going to go ahead and forward your comment to the ad council, so they can get a head start on making an ad.
posted by cashman at 11:27 AM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Death of Osama bin Laden: Phone call pointed U.S. to compound — and to ‘the pacer’.
posted by ericb at 11:35 AM on May 7, 2011

Prof. Juan Cole reports: Taliban, al-Qaeda Flee N. Afghanistan as Morale Collapses with al-Qaeda admission of Bin Laden’s Death

It's still a bit early to speculate, but perhaps Al Qaeda had more involvement with the Taliban -- and especially, with the shift of their focus towards IEDs and suicide bombers -- than previously suspected.
posted by markkraft at 11:43 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the excellent article, warbaby.

The complexity of the ~~relationship~~ enmeshment between the US and Pakistan has not been generally a topic of much interest in newspapers before now. Understanding even a little of the complexity is meaningful because it offers reasons why the US now has to stay in that area of the world, with a frightening-dominating military presence as long as it has business interests in that part of the world.

I appreciate the part the IT guy from Pakistan, @ReallyVirtual/Sohaib Athar, has played in humanizing the Pakistan situation in Western eyes. Just another IT guy with his family, an innocent bystander, who happens to be in the middle of a messy political-military-corporate complexity.

A little backstory of the Big Oil motives for the military mess that has been happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the last 32 years or more.

The U.S. Government's position is that we support multiple pipelines with the exception of the southern pipeline that would transit Iran. The Unocal pipeline is among those pipelines that would receive our support under that policy.

I would caution that while we do support the project, the U.S. Government has not at this point recognized any governing regime of the transit country, one of the transit countries, Afghanistan, through which that pipeline would be routed. But we do support the project.

"The only other possible route [for the desired oil pipeline] is across, Afghanistan which has of course its own unique challenges."

"CentGas can not begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan Government is in place."

The Afghanistan oil pipeline project was finally able to proceed in May 2002. This could not have happened if America had not taken military action to replace the government in Afghanistan.

It has been alleged by a number of reputable sources that Bin Laden also received military and financial assistance from the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States.

Bin Laden was initially trained by US taxpayer dollars (as was Saddam, another monster of the US government's creation): He received security training from the CIA itself. In its origins, Al-Qaida was basically created, armed, funded and supported by the USA government. ie US citizens' taxpayer dollars, from elected government officials. From what I've read it was 3 billion US taxpayer dollars went into funding Bin Laden in the beginning.

Where OBL was living in Haripur was only 21.7 miles (35 kilometers) from Abbottabad. Haripur has a large Afghan refugee camp. That would make sense.

Abbottabad is about 40 minute drive away, just up the Karakoram Highway.

Interesting how the US government is being so delicate now in burying OBL's body at sea. It has not had a history of delicate consideration in the past. For example.
posted by nickyskye at 11:46 AM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anything iclaiming it wasn't Osama is loony. This time they got it right.

I wonder how many of the previous incursions—every damn night for months!!—ended in the dead target not being the person they were hunting.

I wonder how many more Pakistanis will be terrorized by night raids. I can't imagine any more AQ bigwigs are camped out in Pakistan. Their #2 was in Libya being bombed by drones.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:23 PM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wonder how many of the previous incursions—every damn night for months!!

I remember reading (I think it was in the Rolling Stone piece that brought about his removal) about how Gen. William Christopher would go out on these night time kill-fests. Just 'cause he liked doing it.

Good Gawd Y'all! What is it good for?
posted by Trochanter at 12:39 PM on May 7, 2011

Bin Laden was initially trained by US taxpayer dollars (as was Saddam, another monster of the US government's creation): He received security training from the CIA itself.

It is common knowledge that the majority of thetraining was provided by the ISI. American arms/ connections with Saudi cash to the Pakistan effort to the Muj.

Bin Laden thorugh in his lot with Azzam and he only wanted weapons and did not care were the came from. The weapons were mainly russian, hard to get alot of those with dollars.

The same analogy can be made for OBL's intial fortune from his family business/s, alot came from construction via oil money.

yeah, it's feeling like Jim Garrisons office in here but thats ok.
posted by clavdivs at 12:45 PM on May 7, 2011

You know, all the naysayers, insult lobbers and nitpickers in the Fukushima thread 2 months ago who said that nuclear reactor catastrophe was really that bad, were wrong. It's worthwhile, in my experience in life,to be patient and see, get the facts straight before dismissing doubts as being unwise.

the majority of thetraining was provided by the ISI

3 billion dollars given by the US government to train OBL ain't peanuts and, logically, not to be ignored when it comes to looking at how OBL came into power. "The United States has paid billions of dollars to Pakistan both directly and indirectly for the privilege of that country’s meddling in the internal affairs of their neighbors."

Interesting tidbit written this January 2011, which prompts me to wonder if the ISI did know about the OBL compound raid, or maybe just Something Big was underway.

I can't imagine any more AQ bigwigs are camped out in Pakistan.

Wrong. Incorrect. Not.

Thanks for the video clavdivs.

Please refrain from the ad hominem insults, fff. The reason the US government, not known for being truth tellers about many things as proven at length by WikiLeaks docs, for example, released the videos was to dispel doubts. I did not doubt Osama was dead, just the details of the time and place and I think that's within reason.

If the CIA had been watching OBL from a safe house nearby, the corpse of OBL was 6'4" and presumably missing the 2 toes that had been documented being shot off in a prior military battle I wonder why the face recognition tech was needed. If his face had been shot away from a bullet entering in the back there would be not much of a face left. Maybe the face regognition tech was used to identify him before shooting him, not after?

Apparently facial recognition tech was used to identify that OBL was in the compound long before the raid (in September 2010, 8 months ago) on the compound in Abbottabad, taken by a satellite, when OBL was exercising in the compound.

The video clip of OBL in front of the armoire in Abbottabad and the larger carpet border and wall color, which appear in the video at 8:36 are, for me, finally, some proof OBL was actually in Abbottabad and, therefore, actually killed there a week ago. Huh. Good to know more details.
posted by nickyskye at 1:07 PM on May 7, 2011

ack *who said that nuclear reactor catastrophe was really NOT that bad
posted by nickyskye at 1:25 PM on May 7, 2011

I'm sorry: I am all for skepticism and cynicism, but there are limits as to what speculations are worthy of our time, and which are simply stupid. We do not need to entertain every absurd idea. If we do, were no more than Fox News.

But let me write something on-topic. BRB.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:34 PM on May 7, 2011

I'm sorry

I accept your apology, thanks. :)
posted by nickyskye at 1:44 PM on May 7, 2011

The actual action is over; the details are moot. AQ itself says he's dead. Obama decided to use the Presidency to publicly tell Pakistan the USA did this illegal incursion, and that Pakistan can just go suck it. It has disappeared the corpse but apparently without desecration or particular rancor: merciless, explicitly targeted, professional removal of a globally influential, self-admitted terrorist and villain. The USA also removed a ton of collateral intelligence, again telling Pakistan to get stuffed.

The greater story here is in the messaging and the establishment of authority and dominance is most interesting.

I think what's important is not the truthfulness of the truthiness. What's important is what this means going forward. Pakistan has a huge population, nukes, and a bad attitude. What's next?!
posted by five fresh fish at 1:45 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I feel closure, not jubilation.
posted by clavdivs at 1:49 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bin Laden was initially trained by US taxpayer dollars (as was Saddam, another monster of the US government's creation): He received security training from the CIA itself.

As per above ...

The Guardian: -- Myth #1

"Osama bin Laden was 'created' by the CIA

He did not receive any direct funding or training from the US during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant."

posted by ericb at 1:54 PM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

I've been reading a lot about the Apollo space program, books written by the astronauts themselves, biographers or reporters. The variance in the sub-stories is both odd and fascinating.

For instance, A Man on the Moon, by Andrw Chaikin and released in 1995 discussed how the Apollo 11's crew was chosen. Supposedly Armstrong was picked to be the commander and the other two crew members were assigned to him. Yet in Armstrong's official biography, released in 2006, the story is different. Armstrong had the pick of his crew from 4 or 5 other selections, after discussions with the head of the astronaut department. The final choices were his, the rest of the crew was not assigned to him.

This is not top secret stuff, not a hugely important detail, it happened decades ago and the two different stories above were written by noted historians or reporters. Is one of them lying? Was there some secret cover up? Of is it just strangely hard to get the complete truth?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:55 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

"We do not need to entertain every absurd idea. If we do, were no more than Fox News."

I think this is rather appropriate here. The level of Glenn Beck style "doubts" around this whole thing is boggling to me.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:55 PM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

If his face had been shot away from a bullet entering in the back there would be not much of a face left. Maybe the face regognition tech was used to identify him before shooting him, not after?

Or maybe he really was shot in the side of the head because they planed to take a picture and run the software?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:01 PM on May 7, 2011

The greater story here is in the messaging and the establishment of authority and dominance is most interesting.

It is an interesting theory, but I won't believe it until US funding to Pakistan is withdrawn. The alliance is still valuable... see SOS Clinton's commentary.
posted by torticat at 2:07 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

2) Osama's ideological soulmates are really, really against the idea of turning any burial place into a shrine;

You keep pushing this point, JiA, but I don't see that using the word "shrine" implies that it is religious. It's pretty clear that the worldwide affiliates of al Qaeda are primarily united by political reasons -- hatred of the West, justified or not -- rather than a narrow form of Islam, even if ObL himself frames his ideology that way.

In the US, outside of Catholicism the word "shrine" is generally used in secular ways: a shrine to a dead musician, or a shrine for a winning baseball team. Thus, even if the word were used by a US official, it's likely they did not mean it in a religious sense.

The alliance is still valuable

This is the basic problem. It is an alliance of common interests, beset by contradictory and divergent interests. As such, a realist appraisal of foreign policy suggests that any future relationship will still hinge on these factors, rather than broad questions of how much we can trust them.

is it me or does the top the text in this thread look...thin. really, I highlight it and it alighns, must be slight bug in the comment meter and the thread length.

I'm getting wonky mouse selection behavior in FF4. Something up above may have screwed things up.

3 billion dollars given by the US government to train OBL ain't peanuts and, logically, not to be ignored when it comes to looking at how OBL came into power.

Horseshit. We never gave him a dime. He wasn't even much of a fighter; he spent most of his time helping build bases.
posted by dhartung at 2:34 PM on May 7, 2011

is it just strangely hard to get the complete truth?

Well, it's not quick or easy. Mostly because it's all too easy to get bad information. There's a lot of competition to be the first with the quote, the detail, the analysis and the rush to be first overwhelms the need to be accurate. Add to that most editors would rather be wrong with the pack than right by themselves.

Over time, the facts will shake out and more direct sources will replace the second-hand, the hearsay and the fabricated. Typically, it takes at least a couple of weeks and often several months before the core of the story settles down. Crucial details can take a long time to emerge.
posted by warbaby at 2:37 PM on May 7, 2011

With $3 billion in training he really should have been able to take out a few seals.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:38 PM on May 7, 2011

Yes, some closure, not jubilation.

A number of other reputable sources do not agree with that Guardian myth statement, and say OBL was, in fact, funded by the CIA. Certainly, since OBL and the mujahidin he supported were anti-Soviet and the US was still in its anti-Soviet Cold War stance in 1979, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, it would seem logical the CIA would have support OBL then, because he was seen a part of the mujahidin movement.

The US government, according to another Guardian article, put nukes into Pakistan's hands, terrifying the most populous democracy on the planet, India, next door. And like some of the CIA's botched actions of the past, now the nuke holders, called nuclear traffikers, have run amok.

Gore Vidal's opinion re Osama etc.

The oil pipelines are now in place in Azerbajijan and Tukmenistan, will run through Afghanistan and Pakistan (and a collaboration between both those countries).

Maybe the money will flow less into Muslim fundamentalists' hands and more into Pakistani and a, hopefully, new Afghani middle class. 8% of the revenue from this pipeline is expected to go to Afghanis.

> Afghanistan and three of its neighbouring countries have agreed to build a $7.6-billion (U.S.) pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to energy-starved Pakistan and India – a project running right through the volatile Kandahar province – raising questions about what role Canadian Forces may play in defending the project.

To prepare for proposed construction in 2010, the Afghan government has reportedly given assurances it will clear the route of land mines, and make the path free of Taliban influence.

In a report to be released Thursday, energy economist John Foster says the pipeline is part of a wider struggle by the United States to counter the influence of Russia and Iran over energy trade in the region.

> When the countries of Central Asia were part of the Soviet Union, their oil and gas flowed only to the north through Soviet-controlled pipelines. After the Soviet breakup in 1991, however, competing world powers began to explore ways to tap these enormous reserves and move them in other directions.

India and Pakistan will share the output equally, and a small percentage will be used by Afghanistan.

It would seem likely that the Afghani government/corporations and Pakistani government/corporations would be motivated to put an end to extremists so that Big Oil Biz can get underway.

Big Oil Biz in that part of the world now depends on a successful collaboration between Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

That collaboration has a corporate name, TAPI.

The U.S. says TAPI holds the potential to kindle Pakistan-India amity, which could be a terrific thing to happen. It is a milestone in the U.S.' “Greater Central Asia” strategy, which aims at consolidating American influence in the region.
posted by nickyskye at 2:42 PM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

> It is a milestone in the U.S.' “Greater Central Asia” strategy, which aims at consolidating American influence in the region.

It's just not closure I sense.
posted by de at 2:58 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Closure in terms OBL being officially dead, no longer the acting/living founding father figure-head of Al-Qaida.

Hopefully, none of his sons will take over the dynastic role. I'm curious to know the specific identity of the corpses in the Reuters photographs. It looks like of OBL's sons who could take over his leader of Al Qaida role (Hamza, Khalid, Saad or Mohammed), it was Khalid who was the young guy in the t shirt: the others were: Arshad Khan, his brother Tareq, a young man believed to be bin Laden's son, Khalid, and an unidentified male, who may have been called Nadeem.

The removal of OBL as a symbol could be seen as the beginning of less terrorist focused discussions with Pakistan and more business focussed discussions.

Open door to the US having a much more overt role in the political life of that part of the world, since politics these days is so intertwined with corporations, especially Big Oil corporations.

Chevron is one of the companies with vested interests in the Pakistan/Afghanistan/Azerbaijan/Turkmenistan collaboration.

Certain politicians in the US have a vested interest in Chevron.
posted by nickyskye at 3:30 PM on May 7, 2011

The real Muj use to laugh at him, but he had connections. Ah, i recall the time he wanted some western journalists whacked on the spot. The reporters were doing a story on the Muj. I heard it went up to Massoud and he said he would shot bin laden himself no matter who his daddy was.

Afghanistan has never be conquered and it never will.
posted by clavdivs at 4:23 PM on May 7, 2011

Fascinating reading: Timeline of Competition between Unocal and Bridas for the Afghanistan Pipeline

Osama bin Laden (who issued his fatwa against the West in 1998) advised the Taliban to sign with Bridas. (The United States' Big Oil companies must have loved that, heh. Not.)

Bridas' approach to business was more to the Taliban's liking. Where Bulgheroni and Bridas' engineers would take the time to "sip tea with Afghan tribesmen," Unocal's American executives issued top-down edicts from corporate headquarters and the US Embassy (including a demand to open talks with the CIA-backed Northern Alliance).

Warning, speculating ahead. Perhaps offing OBL was part of an agenda to reassure the corporations who are involved in the TAPI agreement that piping the oil through Afghanistan was do-able. Since Pakistan is part of the TAPI deal, they would likely have helped in the OBL assassination.

The Taliban had their own hand in the TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India) oil pipeline deal.

An intelligent video, imo, re Benazir Bhutto's assassination and the oil/gas pipeline, predicting the US' military intervention in Pakistan.

Looks like 2014 is the expected pullout from Afghanistan as a combat zone. From 2014 on the US military would likely continue on in both Afghanistan and Pakistan as security for the TAPI pipeline.

The proposed commissioning of TAPI coincides with the 2014 timeline for ending the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's “combat mission” in Afghanistan. The U.S. “surge” is concentrating on the Helmand and Kandahar provinces, through which TAPI will eventually run. What stunning coincidences!

In sum, TAPI is the finished product of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Kabul will expect the U.S. and NATO to provide security cover, which, in turn, necessitates a long-term western military presence in Afghanistan. Without doubt, the project will lead to a strengthening of the U.S. politico-military influence in South Asia.

Image of the TAPI pipeline route.

"GSPA [Gas Sales Purchase Agreement] was originally to be concluded by April end [2011] but it looks unlikely," the source said. "The deadline is likely to be extended till July 31."

But some independent sources have some apprehensions on TAPI pipeline project due to worsening law and order situation in Afghanistan. They perceive that the project was absolutely unfeasible if peace is not prevailed there as pipeline would go through Afghanistan and threat of blowing by miscreants would be always there.

President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai recently rocked the TAPI boat and Obama flew to Kabul to smoothe the ruffled feathers.
posted by nickyskye at 4:49 PM on May 7, 2011

Noam Chomsky is against it
posted by Artw at 5:01 PM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

@ReallyVirtual: Wow I never knew mentioning Chomsky having 'a few valid points' could anger so many. The cursing has already begun. We are a strange species

ai ai ai, c'mon Bob Orr: "A vane Osama bin Laden shown in new videos". Expected to see this.
posted by nickyskye at 5:08 PM on May 7, 2011

Oh, Chomsky, don't ever change.

I like that he's willing to start with the idea that we can't know that Bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11, because of argumentum ad ignoratum or something, and uses a lot of beg the question phrasing ("no credible evidence" etc.) but is totally willing to say that George W. Bush criminally responsible for untold millions of deaths, that he repeats canards about how easy it would be to capture Bin Laden, and ends on a gratuitous Godwinning.

He's the laziest fucking leftist anymore and it's a shame that he still gets prodded to answer these questions.
posted by klangklangston at 5:31 PM on May 7, 2011 [8 favorites]

In sum, TAPI is the finished product of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Well, no shit. Go back and look at the news from Summer of 2001, when the Taliban's worst transgression in the eyes of the West was their insistence on dynamiting giant statues of Buddha and ObL looked like an insignificant bit player to most people (including myself, I have to admit).

Google for phrases like 'carpet of gold' or look even further back in the archives for NATO briefings from Francisco Pena, an undersecretary (of the DoE, I think) in the Clinton administration. One reason the US committed force to the Balkan war in the 90s was to ensure that Russia wouldn't have a chokehold on southeastern Europe that reached to the Mediterranean coastline. We maintain diplomatic relations with a bunch of odious and arguably unhanged autocrats with monarchical pretensions in a string of little ex-soviet republics like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan because a) they are sitting on top of a vast, vast trove of easily recoverable energy and b) if we don't, Russia will.
posted by anigbrowl at 5:41 PM on May 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

A final analysis of DNA calculates the odds of it being anyone else at one in 11.8 quadrillion.

so there is still some doubt
posted by philip-random at 5:49 PM on May 7, 2011 [4 favorites]

Interesting you brought up the Balkan word anigbowl, because the US presence in the TAPI deal is referred to by some as the Balkanisation of Pakistan.
posted by nickyskye at 5:50 PM on May 7, 2011

'Balkanization' has nothing to do with the 1990s conflict and refers to the earlier history of fragmentation in the region during the 18th and 19th centuries. It's just shorthand for a large territory (in this case the Austro-Hungarian empire) breaking up into smaller politically autonomous areas.

It's not new in Pakistan either; if yo go back and read some of Kipling's narrative and documentary writings, you'll see that the western part of what used to be India (provinces such as Waziristan which are now part of Pakistan) were considered fractious and hard to govern due to their separatist tendencies back in the 19th century as well, even at the apex of British military and economic power.

The Man Who Would Be King offers a particularly cynical fictional perspective, and has always struck me as a veiled critique of British colonial administrators. If you've never read it, you will be astonished at how closely the protagonists' adventurism reflects the events of the last decade. It's a great read in its own right, but as a dramatization of the region's political dynamics I'd say it's well-nigh indispensable.
posted by anigbrowl at 6:34 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

*rolls eyes. anigbowl, I wasn't talking about the 1990's conflict, just the Balkan word.

The war in the Balkans in the 1990's. Definition of Balkanizination. And I wasn't saying it was new either, simply that the US was considered by some to be Balkanizing Pakistan. Sheesh.

/derail
Know the Man Who Would Be Kind Well. Great short story, it's free online too. Here is the online, free radio broadcast of The Man Who Would Be King. So cool. Great movie too. The back story about the short story is wonderful (Josiah Harlan and James Brooke). The book takes place in a part of Afghanistan I am passionately curious about, Nuristan, and was sorely disappointed not to have traveled to when I visited Afghanistan for a month in 1975.
posted by nickyskye at 7:15 PM on May 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: Passionately curious about Nuristan.
posted by cashman at 7:38 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

He's the laziest fucking leftist anymore...

Burn!

You have a valid critique, but I tend to give the guy a little slack given he's 83. His off the cuff is still miles smarter than most of our deeply considered, so I give him a bit of wiggle room.
posted by serazin at 7:52 PM on May 7, 2011

ack, * the Man Who Would Be King. (heh, it would have been nice if he were kind) and Balkanization without the extra syllable, it's long enough as it is, lol

You may well scoff at my passionate curiosity about Nuristan, which, sadly was taken over by the Taliban. The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan. It's an amazingly interesting part of the planet, smack dab in the middle of many cultures and an extraordinary history.

/derail tangent cont'd

The great great great grandson of The Man Who Would Be King, Scott Reiniger.
posted by nickyskye at 8:15 PM on May 7, 2011

Hasidic newspaper removes women from famous Situation Room photo.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:07 PM on May 7, 2011 [4 favorites]

what
posted by anigbrowl at 9:56 PM on May 7, 2011

Hasidic newspaper removes women from famous Situation Room photo.

Oh please oh please oh please let the White House sue this newspaper for IP infringement.

sif, n00b
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 10:14 PM on May 7, 2011

They're going to have a real problem if we end up with President Hillary.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:49 PM on May 7, 2011

New video sheds light on bin Laden compound

US used modified stealth copter in Osama killing

For the death of bin Laden was the triumph not of Jack Bauer, but of Lester Freamon.

Hands bound in takedown, what will happen to bin Laden’s children?
posted by nickyskye at 11:29 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hasidic newspaper removes women from famous Situation Room photo.

From the link:

Hasidic Paper Removes Hillary Clinton From Osama Picture

Der Tzitung cuts Hillary Clinton out of the iconic picture of government leaders watching the Bin Laden hit.

Man, poor Audrey Tomason-- getting no respect from anyone.
posted by dersins at 11:52 PM on May 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Heh: The final edition of Barack Obama's Facebook Feed.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:19 AM on May 8, 2011

nickyskye writes "For the death of bin Laden was the triumph not of Jack Bauer, but of Lester Freamon."

One of my favourite bits of the wire is Lester giving the low down of the finger print he lifted off the pop can and then revealing he works in the pawnshop unit.
posted by Mitheral at 12:21 AM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did Bradley Manning Almost Blow The Operation To Capture/Kill Osama Bin Laden?

According to the document, Libi fled to Peshawar in Pakistan and was living there in 2003 when he was asked to become one of Bin Laden’s messengers. The document says: “In July 2003, detainee received a letter from [Bin Laden's] designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting detainee take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organising travel and distributing funds for families in Pakistan. [Bin Laden] stated detainee would be the official messenger between [Bin Laden] and others in Pakistan. In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad (Pakistan) and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.”

[...]

WikiLeaks released the report last week, prompting speculation that the US, afraid that its planned raid might be preempted, brought forward its attack.
...

Considering that Wikileaks began releasing the Gitmo Files on April 24th and that we now know that President Obama signed the order to begin this operation on Friday April 29th, to originally be carried out the following day on Saturday, there was just 5 days from the point at which Wikileaks released the pertinent classified intelligence and when the President signed off on the OBL capture/ kill mission. This substantially supports the possibility that the classified intelligence, Bradley Manning is charged with removing from DoD classified databases and then passing to Wikileaks, may very well have caused the White House to step up the operation to get OBL.

posted by Anything at 4:57 AM on May 8, 2011

There are so many links now, I'm not certain wether this fine analysis has been posted already? Don't Get Cocky, America
posted by mumimor at 6:57 AM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hasidic newspaper removes women from famous Situation Room photo.

Christ, what a bunch of assholes.
posted by darkstar at 7:27 AM on May 8, 2011

There are so many links now, I'm not certain wether this fine analysis has been posted already? Don't Get Cocky, America

There have been a few links to the site, but not that article. I'm looking forward to 60 minutes tonight. They have no other topics mentioned so I'm hoping they'll spend the full hour doing some good work examining much of what has been discussed here.
posted by cashman at 7:53 AM on May 8, 2011

Don't Get Cocky, America is a product of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a neocon organization that embodies the third iteration of the Committee on the Present Danger. CPD was the single most active lobbying body shaping the American Cold War strategies. The central premise of the FDD is that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is the proper way to maintain the wartime command economy of the Cold War. These are the guys who got us into this mess. They are currently beating the drum for a war with Iran.

Shorter: we haven't distorted the economy enough and need to expand the GWOT.
posted by warbaby at 8:03 AM on May 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Manning had access to insecure information. It is not reasonable to believe the mission was moved up because material accessible to tens of thousands of low-level workers was leaked.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:33 AM on May 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Warbaby, thanks. I had no idea. But also, it makes no sense that the article I linked to should be an apology for more war? Really?
posted by mumimor at 8:34 AM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gore Vidal's opinion re Osama etc.

Now you're just link spamming, nickyskye. What does a '02 story about Vidal's belief in Bush's criminal complicity in the September 11th attacks have to do with anything here? Do you believe that?

I love the old man, but, really, he lets his Olympian hauteur get the best of him sometimes.

Osama bin Laden (who issued his fatwa against the West in 1998) advised the Taliban to sign with Bridas. (The United States' Big Oil companies must have loved that, heh. Not.)

And you're actually quoting a story that appeared at Fourwinds10.com? A site that endorses a kooky mix of new age alien contact, soverign citizenry, birtherism, and insane allegiance to the secret RAP masters? Why not just quote the National Enquierer? Their take on things is probably more credible.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:35 AM on May 8, 2011

Picture of OBL at age 14, in Sweden, wearing blue bellbottoms (second from right) and posing in front of a pink car. I'm sure lots of people here have seen this before and the metafipster eyeroll "I knew about him when he was 7 and playing in a band in Europe" comments are bubbling, but I had never seen this before and it is a starkly different image than the OBL images I have seen. I knew about the riches and his family to an extent, but I didn't expect to see him in a photo like this that looks like an Old Navy ad inside of that 70's show.
posted by cashman at 8:48 AM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Muminor, you're welcome. The lead of the article is pretty clear about wanting to not end the GWOT:

In the torrents of commentary that will follow his announced death, many will agree with the puzzling proclamation that analyst Peter Bergen made on CNN last night that this marks the end of the war on terror.

In fact, bin Laden's death does not close this chapter in history.

So, they don't want to end the war. It then gets into the up is down argument that AQ's strategic thrust is destabilizing the US economy by excessive security costs. The twisted parts is these are the same people responsible for the terrorism boondoggles.

The article argues for continuing the GWOT and keeping the threat of AQ high.

The FDD, CPD and PNAC (it's the same group, they just keep changing the name to make themselves seem more numerous) has been one of the major hawks vis a vis Iran. I'm making the connection because it's not in the article, it's in the history for the neocons. They've never had enough war and always want more.

Sorry if it looked like I was combining both arguments into one. The go-to reference on the CPD is Jerry Sanders Peddlers of Crisis.
posted by warbaby at 9:04 AM on May 8, 2011

Yes, I didn't understand the lead at all, and forgot it while I read. But after reading your comment, I looked up the author, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, and he does seem to be a strange blend of confused and very knowledgable.

Or come to think of it, not so strange, I know quite a few of these guys, and this morning I read a long essay, and an interview with another guy, based on the same essential confusion in my local paper. The sad thing is, these people have far to much power.
posted by mumimor at 9:15 AM on May 8, 2011

Manning had access to insecure information. It is not reasonable to believe the mission was moved up because material accessible to tens of thousands of low-level workers was leaked.

That's not necessarily true because unless you have other pieces of the puzzle, the information about the courier is meaningless. But if you are OBL or the courier and you read that the US now has information that links the courier to OBL to Abbottabad, reasonable security measures would indicate that maybe it's time to change locations. On the other hand, the information is in a late 2008 document so maybe, if OBL and friends had caught it, they'd have decided that the US hadn't made the link.

There's no way of knowing for sure how the release effected the mission timing but I don't think it's as unlikely a scenario as you think.
posted by macfly at 9:45 AM on May 8, 2011

Now you're just link spamming, nickyskye.

What? Apparently you did not read the article.

I stated in this thread I had doubts about OBL's death, the timing and place and, like many others, wanted further evidence before being more certain. For that I was insulted as being "loony" or having conspiracy theories, which is shorthand for idiotic, rabid hysterical, paranoid and, omg no, irrational.

I'm sick of the c phrase being lobbed without giving thought to actual complexities of a situation. In this case geopolitical complexities, like the Big Oil Biz in that part of the world, very much based in reality, well documented but not much known about by the American people, who prefer being able to scapegoat a single Bogeyman and get an adrenalin rush of triumph, yeeha in jubilation when the Bogeyman is offed like in a Xbox game.

There are, of course, ill thought out theories. And some may have to do with conspiracies, or not. But not every doubt or examination of a complex situation is a "conspiracy theory". And there are times in history all over the planet that a conspiracy theory is very much what happened or is actually happening. Enron comes immediately to mind, Watergate, the bogus 're-election' of George W the second time. So the c phrase needs to be used, imo, more precisely or not at all as a term for ridicule and denigration. There are plenty of excellent words/phrases for ridicule and denigration.

Gore Vidal's response to questioning the US government's story on this was, 'Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.'

'It is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since - well, at least the bright dawn of the era of Reagan and deregulation.'

Vidal calls bin Laden an 'Islamic zealot' and 'evil doer' but argues that 'war' cannot be waged on the abstraction of 'terrorism'. He says that 'Every nation knows how - if it has the means and will - to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11 ... You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia; and no-one has suggested bombing Palermo.'

LOL, I love that line, "and no-one has suggested bombing Palermo", such a good point.

That article states exactly what I've been saying: Vidal argues that the real motive for the Afghanistan war was to control the gateway to Eurasia and Central Asia's energy riches. And that, 'Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan ...
posted by nickyskye at 10:07 AM on May 8, 2011

Now that the TAPI deal has been clinched April 30th 2011, the US military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be gradually transformed by 2014 from combat to securing the TAPI pipeline. So US taxpayers' dollars will then go from "National Security" into protecting the assets of the Big Oil Companies in that part of the world, among them Chevron (Condoleeza Rice and Chevron, Halliburton in Turkmenistan, From the Silk Road to Chevron:The Geopolitics of Oil Pipelines in Central Asia).

Did Bradley Manning Almost Blow The Operation To Capture/Kill Osama Bin Laden?

Adding into the mix of speculation, perhaps it had something to do with the pressure on the TAPI pipeline going through and the possibility that if OBL was not offed that the pipeline in Iran would be a better investment for India, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan? Or, it could be a combination of a number of things. : The Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India is expected to be inked TAPI gas pipeline on 30 April [2011] in India where ministerial level meeting of all four countries would be held.

Pakistan to sign Tapi gas line agreement on April 30

Afghan lawmakers on April 30 voted to approve the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline agreement.

Pakistan had a vested interest in keeping OBL alive because he was a source of US financial aid. This shared by "Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI, told the Financial Times on May 3 that the ISI knew where he was, but regarded him as “inactive.” Writing in the May 5 Guardian (UK), author Tariq Ali says that a “senior” ISI official told him back in 2006 that the spy organization knew where bin Laden was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open."
posted by nickyskye at 10:10 AM on May 8, 2011

Osama bin Laden (who issued his fatwa against the West in 1998) advised the Taliban to sign with Bridas. (The United States' Big Oil companies must have loved that, heh. Not.)

And you're actually quoting a story that appeared at Fourwinds10.com?

Jesus H. Christ. You want a more reputable link for the same damn information? Okay, here: From The Center For Research On Globalisation. "The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) is an independent research and media organization based in Montreal. The CRG is a registered non profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada."

Or would you consider believing the Pakistan Defence site?
posted by nickyskye at 10:26 AM on May 8, 2011

Honestly Nickyskye, you are coming off a bit loony here. I've been biting my tongue on that, but seriously, you're all over the place, seemingly using every nugget of a link you can find to cast aspersions on what the Obama administration is saying, while welcoming pretty much every other theory.

That, to me, doesn't sound reasonable. It sounds like you're already made up your mind and then are going about finding whatever links you can to "prove" your point, which isn't hard on the internet.

Whatever legitimate and interesting points you're trying to make about the complexity of the region and its politics are getting lost by posting stuff like the Videl like, who's subtitle is "America's most controversial novelist calls for an investigation into whether the Bush administration deliberately allowed the terrorist attacks to happen." If you're going to link to conspiracy type information, you can't really complain when you get you get labeled conspiracy theorist, IMO.

I can see the rationale in arguing that the Bush administration used 9/11 to press a certain agenda, that makes sense. But that they actually planned or allowed it to happen? I've haven't heard or read a lot to convince of that and anyone who starts spouting that gets edged towards the crackpot column in my head.

Seriously, I think you need to focus on what links you're providing to back up your points, 'cause it's just coming across badly, IMO.

On preview: Jesus H. Christ. You want a more reputable link for the same damn information?

Yeah and I'm amazed that you're not getting that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:31 AM on May 8, 2011

"I'm sick of the c phrase being lobbed without giving thought to actual complexities of a situation."

Just my opinion. But I think you need to step back for a bit and look at what you're doing here. Because if you aren't being ironic or messing with us....... Let's just say that sentence only makes sense if you're messing with us.

The dude is dead, simple as that, and every bit of credible information suggests he died in a villa a few days ago where he was shot by the US military. Simple, not complex.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:45 AM on May 8, 2011

You want a more reputable link for the same damn information?

Yes please, always.

Okay, here: From The Center For Research On Globalisation. "The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) is an independent research and media organization based in Montreal. The CRG is a registered non profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada."

Wait-- I thought you said reputable:

B’nai Brith Canada reacted with concern after reviewing materials posted on the GlobalResearch.ca web site run by Michel Chossudovsky, a professor of economics at the University of Ottawa, which are rife with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.

CANADA'S NUTTIEST PROFESSORS: MICHAEL CHOSSUDOVSKY, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA... As overseer of the anti-U.S., anti-globalization website GlobalResearch.ca, Chossudovsky has manufactured a long list of eyebrow-raising accusations that often read more like wild-eyed conspiracy theories than serious political discourse: the U.S. had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks ("Of course they knew!"); "Washington's New World Order weapons have the ability to trigger climate change"; the U.S. knew in advance about the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but kept it to themselves (apparently so they could ride to the rescue of devastated coastal regions); big banking orchestrates the collapse of national economies...

And there's plenty more where that came from if you check out Chossudovsky's wikipedia entry.

Or would you consider believing the Pakistan Defence site?

Haha, no, not really. That's an effectively anonymous comment on a web forum hosted by these guys, not an authoritative source. It may or may not be accurate, but if these are the only sort of sources you can find for the information, you should...uh... consider the source... and take the stories with a grain of salt.
posted by dersins at 10:51 AM on May 8, 2011

nickyskye, I'm disappointed as well.

Look, there are conspiracies, there are strategies, and there are abiding national interests. I'm hard pressed to believe in a conspiracy that involves Halliburton, Bush, Rice, Cheney, and Obama. I can believe, somehow, just barely, that there were people who were serving a strategy favoring construction of an oil pipeline over any other consideration, but not an entire government. It is, however, clearly in the long term national interest of just about everybody in the world except Pakistan that Afghanistan have a stable security situation which would be conducive to economic development -- including, perhaps, a pipeline. How any of this translates into faking killing bin Laden is beyond me, though.

When you have a Where's Waldo? situation, it's certainly legitimate argument for people to say, Hey, Waldo might be over here, or over there. But when somebody says Waldo is HERE, then refuting that requires actually showing that THIS IS NOT WALDO. You can't win a formal debate by throwing out a separate argument, e.g. Is climate change caused by humans? requires showing that humans do or do not have a role in climate change, not that gnomes and elves do. But increasingly that's the approach you're taking.
posted by dhartung at 11:07 AM on May 8, 2011

Good Article that last Counterpunch link nickyskye. Con Hallinan has an interesting blog Dispatches from the Edge and also contributes to Foreign Policy in Focus and Antiwar.com.
posted by adamvasco at 11:13 AM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks to all who are fact-checking this stuff. I know how time consuming it can be to find the information, double check what you think you see, and then compile and post it. Sometimes its quick but often it isn't.

These moments are good, to me, as it is sure that nickyskye isn't the only one who follows some of these lines of thought. So the thread serves to offer information to those who may only get that conspiratorial presentation. Then they can change their minds on their own based on the material offered, if they so choose.

To be sure, people in power want to keep that power, and they will do things to protect their positions. So I think it's healthy to have some skepticism about events. But the critical thinking involved in evaluating these materials has to come into play when you need to realize what is a dead end, supported only by kooks.
posted by cashman at 11:24 AM on May 8, 2011

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein.

Yeah, simple as the Fukushima plant not being that bad or not being complex. There are many complex situations in the world, worth examining. This is, imo, one of those. It is a complex part of the world and a complex situation.

Obama, like ANY other Washington DC politco, is not somebody whose word I automatically believe as the gospel truth. It's wise, imo, to examine pretty much everything that comes out of Washington, from anybody's mouth, at any time.

So, one link was to a site to was not to your liking. Don't like those links, how about these?

The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: mass mobilization, civil war, and the future of the region By Neamatollah Nojumi | Neamatollah Nojumi: his credentials:
Neamat Nojumi is a scholar on Central and Southwest Asia and the Author of the Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region (2002) as well as number of research papers on the contemporary politics of the above regions. Nojumi has worked as a consultant on Afghanistan with Tufts University/the United States Agency for International Development USAID for several times. He is a frequent public speaker on Central and southwest Asia. Nojumi served both in military and political fronts in the Afghan resistance known as Mujahideen in 1980s, and he became a peace activist in 1990s.

Nojumi has studied at Yale, West Hartford, and Tufts Universities. He received a BA in Politics and Government from University of Hartford and a MALD (Master of Art in Law and Diplomacy) with a focus on International Security and International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Nojumi has also worked as a fellow at the Harvard Law School.

Or how about The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader By Peter L. Bergen

Wikipedia entry for Bridas: Between 1995 and 1997, CEO Carlos Bulgheroni was personally involved in negotiations between Bridas and the governments of Pakistan and Turkmenistan, as well as the ruling Taliban faction in Afghanistan, to built the Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline.

More: Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in central Asia By Ahmed Rashid | about Ahmed Rashid

The United States government, including a number of people the people in that iconic photo, particularly Brennan, have made many misstatements about this compound raid. Conflicting data has zinged around the world from this small group (actually I read somewhere it was 79 people in total, still a relatively small group). It seems perfectly reasonable to examine the details thoroughly and check out the agendas in that part of the world, especially the TAPI pipeline, Big Oil Biz has been a major motivation for military invasion in Iraq, for example, not "weapons of mass destruction".

Frankly, I consider it loony to not examine a situation and want to know more details. And, as it happens more details have been emerging, as I hoped they would.

I'm pretty astounded by the statement that Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI said, that the ISI knew where OBL was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open."

That's the former head of the Pakistani Agency ISI, Hamid Gul, (retired in 1989) that the CIA has been working with saying that.

Check this one out on the CNN blog: Hamid Gul, Pakistan's fmr. intelligence chief, says President Obama knows Osama bin Laden died 'some years ago.'

My idea all along has been to wait for more information and to look at details. And that's what I've done.
posted by nickyskye at 11:29 AM on May 8, 2011

It was just Osama's house, wasn't it? I'm somewhat fine with them calling it a Mansion, but really it was just his house. It wasn't a "compound" and it is definite framing to further the (correct) picture of him as a murderous, dangerous person.

But really, there's no reason to keep calling it a compound. So what if "U.S. forces went to Osama's house" would make people realize what actually happened. Yeah, we went to the terrorist's house and shot him to death. It wasn't a compound.

Back to the photos, the AP filed an FOIA request to get "all of the photographs and video taken by U.S. military personnel during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan and on the USS Carl Vinson, the ship that conducted his burial at sea."

Should AP win the FOIA request, it doesn't mean the world will automatically see the photographs.

"We would like to obtain images from the raid because we believe they would have significant news value," AP director of media relations Paul Colford told News Photographer magazine today.

"However, we would decide about publishing all or some on the images based on our own editorial standards, which include such factors as tastefulness and whether they could cause harm or danger to others."

So they ask for the stuff, then say they wouldn't necessarily release it to the public? So what, you just want to get it to be able to say neener neener, we've seen it but you can't?

Others have filed FOIA requests so it will be interesting to see what happens now. Depending on how requests are formatted, if the AP gets what they requested, they won't have exclusivity for long. So thinking about it, if the government ends up having to release the photos because of FOIA requests, they might as well just publish them all.

Apparently there is a 20-day deadline for a government response. I think the AP's request date puts that at May 25. I think they just have to respond, not necessarily release the information immediately. Maybe 60 minutes will address that too.

Did anyone here file an FOIA for the photos or videos?
posted by cashman at 12:01 PM on May 8, 2011

Check this one out on the CNN blog: Hamid Gul, Pakistan's fmr. intelligence chief, says President Obama knows Osama bin Laden died 'some years ago.'

*sighs*

The interview starts off like this:

SPITZER: So let me ask this very first question. Do you believe that Osama bin Laden was killed just a few days ago by the United States' raid in Abbottabad?

GUL: I believe so. But there are stories. People don't tend to believe this. But I think the third wife of Osama bin Laden has given the version - her version and she says that it was bin Laden, no doubt.

He starts off agreeing that it was Bin Laden that was killed. He then turns around and says it wasn't Bin Laden and that he believes he died years ago and that this story was manufactured by the Obama administration to use at opportune time.

He doesn't offer a single shred of proof or evidence to back up this story.

He says the story put out by the Obama administration is contradictory so it must be a lie, while conveniently ignoring the contradictions he made in his own videotaped interview within the span of 20 seconds or so.

He says he has no knowledge of the operations of the ISI and has maintained no contacts after his retirement in 1989.

The Wikipedia page about him goes to an interview where he says Bin Laden wasn't involved in 9/11 and clearly it was Mossad. Here's the excerpt:

Q: So what makes you think Osama wasn't behind Sept. 11?

A: From a cave inside a mountain or a peasant's hovel? Let's be serious. Osama inspires countless millions by standing up for Islam against American and Israeli imperialism. He doesn't have the means for such a sophisticated operation.

Q: Why Mossad?

A: Mossad and its American associates are the obvious culprits. Who benefits from the crime? The attacks against the twin towers started at 8:45 a.m. and four flights are diverted from their assigned air space and no air traffic controller sounds the alarm. And no Air Force jets scramble until 10 a.m. That also smacks of a small scale Air Force rebellion, a coup against the Pentagon perhaps? Radars are jammed, transponders fail. No IFF friend or foe identification challenge. In Pakistan, if there is no response to IFF, jets are instantly scrambled and the aircraft is shot down with no further questions asked. This was clearly an inside job. Bush was afraid and rushed to the shelter of a nuclear bunker. He clearly feared a nuclear situation. Who could that have been? Will that also be hushed up in the investigation, like the Warren report after the Kennedy assassination?

Q: At this point, someone might be asking what you've been smoking. What is Israel's interest in such a monstrous plot, which, of course, no one believes except Islamist extremists who concocted this piece of disinformation in the first place, presumably to detract from the real culprits?

A: Jews never agreed to Bush 41 (George H.W. Bush, the 41st president) or 43 (his son George W. Bush, the 43rd president). They made sure Bush senior didn't get a second term. His land-for-peace pressure in Palestine didn't suit Israel. They were also against the young Bush because he was considered too close to oil interests and the Gulf countries. Bush senior and Jim Baker had raised $150 million for Bush junior, much of it from Mideast sources or their American go-betweens. Bush 41 and Baker, as private citizens, had also facilitated the new strategic relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran. I have this from sources in both countries. So clearly the prospect of a Bush 43 was a potential danger to Israel.

Jews were stunned by the way Bush stole the election in Florida. They had put big money on Al Gore. Israel has given its imperialist guardian parent opportunities to turn disaster into a pretext for imposing an all-encompassing military, political and economic agenda to further the cause of global capitalism. While Colin Powell is cautious and others are reckless and want to make up for their failure to defeat Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War 10 years ago, the global agenda is the same.

Israel knows it has a short shelf-life before it is overwhelmed by demographics. It is a state that was born in terrorism that terrorized Palestinians into the exile of refugee camps, where they have now subsisted in squalid refugee camps, and is now very much afraid of Pakistan's nuclear capability.

Israel has now handed the Bush family the opportunity it has been waiting for to consolidate America's imperial grip on the Gulf and acquire control of the Caspian basin by extending its military presence in Central Asia. Bush conveniently overlooks or is not told the fact that Islamic fundamentalists got their big boost in the modern age as CIA assets in the covert campaign I was also involved with to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Bush senior was vice president during that entire campaign. And no sooner did he become president on Jan. 20, 1989, than he summoned an inter-agency intelligence meeting and issued an order, among several others, to clip the wings of ISI (Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence) that had been coordinating the entire operation in Afghanistan. I know this firsthand as I was DGISI at the time (director general, ISI).

So one of your sources for doubting the Obama administration is retired chief of ISI, who first agreed it was Bin Laden, then turned around in 20 seconds and said it wasn't, implied it was impossible to believe the Obama administration because of conflicting stories, while ignoring his own, doesn't have a shred of proof, ends the interview by saying he's out of contact with intelligence says and has been for 20 years. And and the Jews 'caused 9/11.

These are the types of sources you've been linking to in this thread, contradictory ones as you supposedly question the Obama administration but not your sources. What the hell?

No says you have to Obama at his word and if you've got some decent sources that shed light on something, fine, I'm all ears, but your repeated spamming of the thread with these long verbose articles with information you either haven't read or considered, which is natural because there's too much there for one person to absorb in a day, let alone 20 minutes, you just weaken whatever points you're trying to make.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:04 PM on May 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

A Volcano of Lies
Further back, when DNA matches were unknown, US special forces verified Che Guevara's execution by permitting many photographs immediately post-mortem. They also cut off Che's hands, for subsequent verification by the CIA. We're not talking Miss Manners here
posted by adamvasco at 12:04 PM on May 8, 2011

I'm pretty astounded by the statement that Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI said, that the ISI knew where OBL was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open."

That's the former head of the Pakistani Agency ISI, Hamid Gul, (retired in 1989) that the CIA has been working with saying that.

Check this one out on the CNN blog: Hamid Gul, Pakistan's fmr. intelligence chief, says President Obama knows Osama bin Laden died 'some years ago.'

But according to the article you linked to above it wasn't General Gul who said the bit about the 'golden egg', it was an unnamed “senior” ISI official in 2006. General Gul has been retired from the ISI from 1989. In addition, the latest CNN link has General Gul saying that he thinks OBL has been dead for several years but the Financial Times has him saying that OBL was 'inactive'. With CNN he also states that he has no links to the current ISI and hasn't since he retired so it's not clear where his information is coming from.
posted by macfly at 12:05 PM on May 8, 2011

I'm pretty astounded by the statement that Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI said, that the ISI knew where OBL was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” .....Hamid Gul, Pakistan's fmr. intelligence chief, says President Obama knows Osama bin Laden died 'some years ago.'

See, you're just throwing random stuff at the wall here and seeing what, if anything sticks: both of those statements CANNOT POSSIBLY BE TRUE, as they completely contradict each other. This is why your repeated linkdumps are coming across as crazytalk conspiracy stuff to some of us.
posted by dersins at 12:05 PM on May 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Combat Camera Program

"Combat Camera is a low-density, high-demand force enabler composed of highly trained VI professionals prepared to deploy to the most austere operational environments at a moment's notice. Seasoned in the art of acquiring and using still and motion imagery, COMCAM forces provide the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Combatant Commands, Joint Task Forces and Services a directed imagery capability to support operational planning, public affairs, information warfare, mission assessment, legal and countless other requirements during crises, contingencies and exercises around the globe.

COMCAM forces, in addition to receiving specialized MOS/NEC/AFSC training, also receive combat, weapons, aircraft safety and other special task training to prepare them for deployment and insertion into hostile and remote areas, and are ready to embed and operate with front-line and Special Operations forces."

posted by ericb at 12:06 PM on May 8, 2011

Huh cashman, definition of compound: A building or buildings, especially a residence or group of residences, set off and enclosed by a barrier. Osama compound.
posted by nickyskye at 12:08 PM on May 8, 2011

"Smartphones may soon take the place of helmet cameras, with soldiers placing their phones into a special pocket on the outside of a Kevlar vest, camera facing out.

... Though the military won’t divulge the precise type of camera used by SEAL commandos, smartphones may eventually take their place. A company called IncaX has developed a software solution that effectively transforms the ubiquitous, off-the-shelf smartphone into a cheap body-worn camera that can stream video live—and the Office of Naval Research is testing it out for use with the SEALs, says Bill Switzer of CopTrax, a firm that markets IncaX technology. Soldiers simply have to mount a smartphone on their chest—in a special pocket on the outside of a Kevlar vest, for instance, with the camera facing out. During combat, commanders can see the location of their troops on a map as a mission proceeds and, with the click of a button, see what any individual soldier is seeing in real time (here’s what the command dashboard looked like during a recent test). The video is also recorded locally and uploaded to a cloud server when bandwidth permits for later review. Thanks to the accelerometers that are nearly ubiquitous in smartphones, the system can even detect movement and g-force that soldiers experience, its makers say."*

posted by ericb at 12:09 PM on May 8, 2011

A Volcano of Lies

Linking to that article just makes you look loony. Seriously. The third paragraph says the following:

• The White House photograph of Obama, Clinton and top security advisors supposedly watching real-time footage of the Navy Seals' onslaught on the Abbottabad compound, their killing of two men and a woman (excuse for the latter killing: the standard "caught in crossfire") and liquidation of OBL himself turns out to have been a phony. BO and friends could have been watching basketball replays. Panetta has admitted the real-time video link stopped working before the Seals got into the compound.

It doesn't give a source, a link or anything that gives a hint of proof about the statement and then veers wildly off into conjecture.

If ya'll don't want to be thought of crazy conspiracists, stop posting crazy conspiracy shit. it's that simple.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:11 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty astounded by the statement that Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI said, that the ISI knew where OBL was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.”

How? I mean how are you astounded? I'm asking. Please explain.

Isn't this the common understanding of most people with even passing knowledge of the situation? Hasn't the administration been - in more diplomatic language - saying this for years?
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:12 PM on May 8, 2011

LOL, MetaFilter: just makes you look loony.
posted by nickyskye at 12:14 PM on May 8, 2011

Navy SEAL Helmet Cams: Obama Watched bin Laden Raid Video -- "Obama and officials in the White House Situation Room were able to watch the raid against bin Laden live, the Washington Post confirms. Ian Yarett on how helmet-cam combat video works."

But neither of those links actually talk about streaming video from Helmet Cams - the WaPost article says "the president and his national security team watched a soundless video feed of the raid." Since there's also quotes from Panetta about '20 to 25 minutes' where they didn't have good info on the raid, I suggest that if they were getting live video, it was either overhead from a drone or video from the helicopters both of which could be securely linked.
posted by macfly at 12:17 PM on May 8, 2011

Yeah -- it'd be interesting to know what they actually were seeing in the Situation Room.

I find it fascinating that as video technology progresses commanders can/will monitor the view from each and every soldier.
posted by ericb at 12:21 PM on May 8, 2011

... were able to watch the raid against bin Laden live, the Washington Post confirms.

As an aside, Bob Woodward was the author of that article. I suspect that the Obama killing and raid is now his "beat." If so, it'll be interesting to follow his reporting. He's famous for having incredible sources in the government and military.
posted by ericb at 12:27 PM on May 8, 2011

I suspect that the Obama killing [...] is now his "beat."

I see what you did there.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:30 PM on May 8, 2011

What I first said was:

Pakistan had a vested interest in keeping OBL alive because he was a source of US financial aid. This shared by "Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI, told the Financial Times on May 3 that the ISI knew where he was, but regarded him as “inactive.” Writing in the May 5 Guardian (UK), author Tariq Ali says that a “senior” ISI official told him back in 2006 that the spy organization knew where bin Laden was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open."

In haste, I then said: I'm pretty astounded by the statement that Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI said, that the ISI knew where OBL was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open."

I meant to write: I'm pretty astounded by the statement that Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI said, that the ISI knew where OBL was and that the ISI had no intention of arresting him because he was “The goose that laid the golden egg.” In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open." The ISI was the spy organisation of which Hammad Gul had been the head.

y6y6y6, you don't think it surprising that the former head of the ISI said the ISI knew where OBL was and that the motivation of the ISI was to keep OBL around to milk the US of funds, knowing all along OBL was down the road from the Pakistani Military academy, which is where OBL was? I find that astounding.

Leaving you guys to your simplicity and jubilation. I'm seeking mine in some Spring gardening.
posted by nickyskye at 12:34 PM on May 8, 2011

One last one. Sure enough: Osama bin Laden must have had Pakistan support network, says Obama

This will be smoothed over as the real business at hand, the TAPI pipeline gets underway.
posted by nickyskye at 12:36 PM on May 8, 2011

y6y6y6, you don't think it surprising that the former head of the ISI said the ISI knew where OBL was and that the motivation of the ISI was to keep OBL around to milk the US of funds, knowing all along OBL was down the road from the Pakistani Military academy, which is where OBL was? I find that astounding.

Gul said, in the interview you linked to, that he has had no contacts with the ISI since he retired over 20 years ago. He's not a reliable source and yet you seem to ignore that fact. What the hell?

Leaving you guys to your simplicity and jubilation.

What are you talking about?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:39 PM on May 8, 2011

This is why your repeated linkdumps are coming across as crazytalk conspiracy stuff to some of us.

I would not put it just this way, but this sentiment really resonated with me. Because, nickiskye, I know you as a long-time contributor to Metafilter and basically a nice person whose judgment is generally sound, and I am honestly worried about what is going on with you.

What I can't help but see in this thread is what seems to be an obsessive interest on your part in any and all mentions of bin Laden whatsoever, to the point where you seem to have lost any capacity to weigh what is even credible any more. You aren't worried about verifying sources, you don't sort the wheat from the chaff, you just seem to have this voracious appetite for anything bin Laden-related, and honestly it is really becoming alarming to me how much you have fixated on this.

I stopped viewing this thread for a while because you were just putting up so many links, accounts and accusations and conspiracy theories I couldn't even understand you felt were worth adding to the thread, and I was getting overloaded and frustrated and thought I'd better step away.

And then I come back and here you still are, continuing to obsess about this.

You are getting positively time-cubey about this, and it's scary.

I'm really sorry if I hurt your feelings, because that's not my intention. I just...I don't know what to say except I hope you are not as invested in all this crap as it seems, and that you will eventually be able to put it all in perspective and let it go, for your own sake.
posted by misha at 12:43 PM on May 8, 2011

Garrick from DS9 was modeled on Hammad Gul. Gul was Bin Laden supporter during the occupation. I think conspiracy theories are ok, they help boost CI skills. I wont rail about nickskye and tin foil. The logic is being followed through, though, i doubt alot. For instance, one would not need to Howard Hughes' OBL in order to get the cash flow, if a conspiracy is to follow, create a new bad man.
posted by clavdivs at 12:43 PM on May 8, 2011

Also on Guls watch, 90% of the 777 terrorists incidents for 1987 took place in Pakistan.
posted by clavdivs at 12:49 PM on May 8, 2011

Ok, one final, final, really final link, really. Very funny speculation about how the compound was discovered. Continuing to be astounded. Amazing, Christiane Amanpur knew he was in a villa in Pakistan way back in 2008.
posted by nickyskye at 12:51 PM on May 8, 2011

"y6y6y6, you don't think it surprising that the former head of the ISI......"

No. Did you read my comment which you are referring to?

While it might be a big deal if it were proven true, no one would be surprised. Perhaps "no one" is a bit broad, but I think it's close.

I also wouldn't be surprised if a dragnet of links could be spammed into the thread that vaguely implied a connection between geopolitics, oil, and militant groups. Or for that matter links could be found, with the center goal being "doubt", between Walt Disney and the Manson slayings.

In short - No, obvious things are not surprising. And yes, a fringe theory which explains an event as the result of a secret plot is a conspiracy theory.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:55 PM on May 8, 2011

Brandon I don't believe every word written in Counter Punch but then neither do I believe eevery word out of the White House. I think we can agree that OBL is dead and I think we can also agree that the statements being made by various authorities are muddying rather clarifying the waters.
It is almost as if they don't want the truth to come out. Transparency my arse

posted by adamvasco at 1:02 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ok, one final, final, really final link, really.

nickyskye, you seem to be concerned that people are unjustly tarring you as crazy (for example, you complained that you're sick of "the c phrase" - I presume "conspiracy theory" - and that you've been insulted as being "loony"). If I'm correct that you are concerned about that, then here's some serious advice, take it or leave it:

When you post a wall of links, and someone asks a question about them because they don't seem to hold up to a modicum of scrutiny, your MO seems to be to ignore the question. Then, eventually, you'll post another wall of links. Or, in the rare cases that you don't ignore the question completely, you only respond to it to say "Oh yeah? You don't believe that? Well what about this wall of links?"

Why don't you just respond? Rather than ignoring and spamming again? If only to say "Yes, that's an interesting point, now that you point it out to me I do see that Gul has directly said that he believes OBL was just killed in a raid a few days ago"?

Or "Sorry, I didn't realize that that guy who I was quoting actually is on record as saying that the US government knew in advance of the Indonesian tsunami but decided to keep it to themselves, that they of course knew in advance of 9/11, and that the New World Order has weapons to affect climate change; maybe he wasn't the greatest source"?

If you're genuinely concerned that people are finding you to be crazy, "Ignore when people point out clear examples of what's wrong with my wall of links, and immediately issue another wall of links" is probably not the best strategy for convincing them otherwise.
posted by Flunkie at 1:12 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

cashman writes "It was just Osama's house, wasn't it? I'm somewhat fine with them calling it a Mansion, but really it was just his house. It wasn't a 'compound' and it is definite framing to further the (correct) picture of him as a murderous, dangerous person."

You may be confusing compound with its special case fortified compound.

Merriam Webster: a fenced or walled-in area containing a group of buildings and especially residences.

Free Dictionary: A building or buildings, especially a residence or group of residences, set off and enclosed by a barrier.

Wikipedia: Compound when applied to a human habitat refers to a cluster of buildings in an enclosure, having a shared or associated purpose, such as the houses of an extended family (e.g. the Kennedy Compound for the Kennedy family). The enclosure may be a wall, a fence, a hedge or some other structure, or it may be formed by the buildings themselves, when they are built around an open area or joined together.
posted by Mitheral at 1:14 PM on May 8, 2011

Or would you consider believing the Pakistan Defence site?

Why should I? If the US government isn't credible, then why should I believe the Pakistani government is more credible?

So, one link was to a site to was not to your liking

No, one link that I know of was to a site that's nuttier than a fruitcake. Not to someone with their own slant on the news, or to someone who was merely mistaken on some instance of fact, or even to a story incompetently reported, but to an organization that's probably a scam, maybe a cult, maybe both, anyway an organization which is a source of all the usual internet conspiracy theories: NWOism, alien contact, enlightened beings, chemtrails, birtherism, trutherism, the Restore America Plan (Did you know that Obama isn't even President now? Tim Turner is.), and more that I'm not aware of, probably. So either you believe Fourwinds10.com is a credible source for information, in which case I don't trust your judgement of what's credible and what isn't, or else you just chose the source because it appeared to support your argument, in which case you're just cherry picking evidence with no analysis at all of the information you're providing.

I'm not trying to be insulting, honestly. But if you don't want people to call you a crazy conspiracy theorist, then you should stop repeating crazy conspiracy theories.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:21 PM on May 8, 2011

I don't believe every word written in Counter Punch

Knock it off with the moving of goal posts.

You specifically cited a particular article on the Counter Punch site as good. That article, titled Volcano of Lies, does a lot of speculation and doesn't have a shred of proof behind it, but does have a super size helping of crazy in its value meal buffet of loony spoutings.

I'm not asking you to believe everything Obama and his administration says about the OBL killing. Since you said this article was good and linked to it repeatedly, I'm just asking you about its third paragraph:

• The White House photograph of Obama, Clinton and top security advisors supposedly watching real-time footage of the Navy Seals' onslaught on the Abbottabad compound, their killing of two men and a woman (excuse for the latter killing: the standard "caught in crossfire") and liquidation of OBL himself turns out to have been a phony. BO and friends could have been watching basketball replays. Panetta has admitted the real-time video link stopped working before the Seals got into the compound.

I am completely unaware of that photo being "a phony," whatever that means exactly. Could you provide a source or link that cites or proves how and why the photo is a phony, please? Seriously.

Then we can move on to the fourth paragraph:

• Panetta also admits Osama bin Laden was not armed, and that he did not hide behind his young wife's skirt. He conceded that under military rules of engagement Osama should have been taken prisoner, but then added vaguely that he showed some unspecified form of resistance. He probably reached for his walking stick, since he has been ailing from kidney and liver problems. As any black or brown resident in, say, the purview of the Ramparts Division of the LAPD knows full well, reaching for a walking stick or even holding a cell phone can be a death warrant; multiply that likelihood by a factor of 100 if you are the world’s most wanted terrorist in front of a score of heavily armed and homicidal Navy SEALs, no doubt amped up on amphetamine.

There isn't a single link to Panetta saying this, followed by conjecture that doesn't have shred of proof to it, implies the US military is just hunting dark skinned people and says the SEALS are "no doubt amped up on emphetamine".

Can you provide a link or two to support any of that? If not, then why are you repeatedly posting the link as a good source?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:24 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think we can agree that OBL is dead and I think we can also agree that the statements being made by various authorities are muddying rather clarifying the waters.
It is almost as if they don't want the truth to come out.

The conclusion does not follow the premise. The fact that the Administration has muddied rather than clarified the waters does not mean they are trying to muddy the waters. The problem occured when the Administration tried to be more accurate, not less accurate. What the conspiracy theorists have done is asssumed the muddying was motivated by bad faith. There's no evidence for that.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:25 PM on May 8, 2011

You know, I forgot about the barbed wire. Compound it is. Because pretty much nobody would describe an american home behind a wall or gates, as a compound.
posted by cashman at 1:35 PM on May 8, 2011

pretty much nobody would describe an american home behind a wall or gates, as a compound.

Kennedy Compound.

Bush compound.

Gates compound.

Shall I go on?
posted by dersins at 1:46 PM on May 8, 2011

Sure, but instead of listing leaders, walk up to people on the street with pictures of american homes and ask them what is is. Nobody is going to say it is a compound. We both know that. But if the point you're making is that when it is someone rich it isn't all that uncommon, then okay, I agree with you on that.
posted by cashman at 1:54 PM on May 8, 2011

Murray Compound.

Shelter Island Compound.

Bill Koch's Elk Mountain Compound.
posted by ericb at 1:58 PM on May 8, 2011

It was kind of personal. Being there in your polyester pants and shiny dress shoes, it’s not what you think you’re going to wear when you go to war The Daily Beast interviews Bush officials on Bin Laden hunt
posted by mumimor at 1:59 PM on May 8, 2011

One should keep an open mind—but not so open one's brain falls out.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:29 PM on May 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sen. Schumer proposes 'no-ride list' for Amtrak trains -- "Intel gathered in bin Laden raid points to potential threat."
posted by ericb at 2:36 PM on May 8, 2011

SNL covers the bin Laden thing...and creates a NEW CONSPIRACY THEORY (that centers around the SNL writers mining this Metafilter thread for material...)

TAL also covers bin Laden (sandwiched in between a lot of other stuff, yet worth waiting for.)
posted by jeanmari at 2:44 PM on May 8, 2011

Sen. Schumer proposes 'no-ride list' for Amtrak trains

What a fucking idiot. There are thousands upon thousands of unguarded, unmonitored tracks in the US. It'd be a piece of cake to plant a device without setting foot on a train.
posted by desjardins at 2:46 PM on May 8, 2011

...thousands upon thousands OF MILES of unguarded ... etc
posted by desjardins at 2:46 PM on May 8, 2011

60 Minutes interview with President Obama is coming on now.
posted by cashman at 3:58 PM on May 8, 2011

A train derailment somewhere is awful, but for a terrorist having a bomb explode while it's pulling into a large station is much better - more casualties, better media coverage and so on. When I was in Spain after September 11 they had intense security for train passengers because that has been a popular attack vector in the past among groups like ETA, and members of different radical groups tend to study each others' techniques. It is not a wholly irrational countermeasure to consider.
posted by anigbrowl at 4:00 PM on May 8, 2011

60 Minutes interview with President Obama is coming on now.

Obama: Bin Laden Had Support Network In Pakistan.
posted by ericb at 4:06 PM on May 8, 2011

Torture May Have Slowed Hunt For Bin Laden, Not Hastened It.
posted by ericb at 4:08 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Uh oh, Obama said Geronimo was the code name for OBL.
posted by thirteenkiller at 4:34 PM on May 8, 2011

Hard hitting as always, 60 minutes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:00 PM on May 8, 2011

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/08/60minutes/main20060876.shtml

Video, transcript of President Obama on 60 minutes.

It's moments like this that make me once again proud to have put in work for this guy. Apart from the stray supercynical troll comment, I've seen a number of people who really came away impressed by President Obama in this 60 minutes interview. Until I see someone better, I continue to believe he is the right person for the job.
posted by cashman at 5:04 PM on May 8, 2011

The week ahead for the president:

On Monday, the President will meet with the co-chairs of the U.S. and China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, including Secretary of State Clinton, Treasury Secretary Geithner, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo.

On Tuesday, the President will travel to the El Paso, Texas area to deliver a speech on fixing the broken immigration system so that it meets America's 21st century economic and security needs. He will then travel to Austin, Texas before returning to Washington, D.C.

On Wednesday, the President will participate in a CBS Town Hall at the Newseum. In the evening, the President and the First Lady will host a celebration of American poetry and prose by welcoming accomplished poets, musicians and artists as well as students from across the country to the White House.

On Thursday, the President will deliver remarks at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast.

On Friday, the President will attend meetings at the White House.

Sure I know the schedule is packed and the job is obviously thousands of previous, current and future problems and situations to fix, apologize for, stop or address, but it's still daunting to know that next up is that trivial issue of immigration.
posted by cashman at 5:59 PM on May 8, 2011

he is the right person for the job.

I just wish he was a liberal.
posted by Trochanter at 6:17 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I too wish he were one quarter FDR, one quarter John L. Lewis, one quarter Cesar Chavez, and one quarter Shirley Chisolm.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:56 PM on May 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

And one quarter Godzilla. Wait, how many quarters are there in a euro?
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 7:06 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Same as in town.
posted by Trochanter at 7:08 PM on May 8, 2011 [3 favorites]

U.S. officials have since said that "Geronimo" was the name of the operation itself and that "Jackpot" was the code word for bin Laden.

vs

OBAMA: There was a point before folks had left before we had gotten everybody back on the helicopter and were flying back to base, where they said "Geronimo" has been killed. And Geronimo was the code name for bin Laden.

Yeah, I know this isn't the biggest thing in the world, but it was big enough for "U.S. officials" to make up some story about it and pass it on to reporters.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:10 PM on May 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fuck it. A truly liberal President would a fifth of a quarter Godzilla as well.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 PM on May 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Fuck it. A truly liberal President would a fifth of a quarter Godzilla as well.

I think you accidentally a word there.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 7:17 PM on May 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

he is the right person for the job.

I just wish he was a liberal.

If this is your definition of liberal, there's never been a liberal President, ever.
posted by Ironmouth at 7:20 PM on May 8, 2011

Ah. Yes I did. If you like, insert "drink" at the appropriate place.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:22 PM on May 8, 2011

That is an excellent perception about the administration. It does seem that the waters got muddied but when you look at the chronology of the info, it appears more like putting oil on the waters.

calvin cooledge was 1/5 maple syrup.
posted by clavdivs at 8:14 PM on May 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I know this isn't the biggest thing in the world, but it was big enough for "U.S. officials" to make up some story about it and pass it on to reporters.

Well, it's a good thing the administration wasn't trying to please you; we all know that's a non-starter.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 8:32 PM on May 8, 2011

But, hey, Osama is dead.

Now what? Or who?
posted by five fresh fish at 9:09 PM on May 8, 2011

Now what?

Immigration.
posted by cashman at 9:18 PM on May 8, 2011

Good Day Brandon
The Counterpunch article I recommended was by Conn Hallinan.
Volcano of Lies is an editorial you object to by Alexander Cockburn. Counterpunch is not a nice publication it prides itself on muckraking with a radical attitude.
So two different articles from a diverse publication. Sorry you got confused.
I have a lot of respect for you especially as you are a knowledgeable political junky however sometimes I think you might have lost a bit of your objectivity.
The White House definitely seems to be struggling in the Fog of War
posted by adamvasco at 12:53 AM on May 9, 2011

"You may well scoff at my passionate curiosity about Nuristan, which, sadly was taken over by the Taliban. The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan."

Afghan troops kill, wound 25 'foreign fighters' in Nuristan - 5 days ago.



NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – 11 hours ago:

Soldiers from 1st and 2nd Commando Kandaks and Special Operations Task Force – East made significant gains in the formerly insurgent-held Konar River Valley, Barg-e Matal district, Nuristan province, during a three-day combined clearing operation . . . the northernmost tip of Nuristan province . . . has historically been a staging area for the large influx of insurgents traveling into the province.. . . Before dawn, May 2, the northernmost teams secured the district center without resistance.  . . the combined force took heavy fire . . . With support from air weapons teams, an estimated 18 enemy fighters were killed and multiple weapon caches were discovered. On the third day of the operation, the remaining villages within the valley were cleared . . .  air weapons teams engaged a sniper position and insurgent fighting position within a cave, killing an unknown number of insurgents.

...and this is why I find your laundry list of 2009 links somewhat unconvincing, in that it doesn't express the significance -- or lack of significance -- of the Taliban's presence in Nuristan.

The fact is, the Taliban fled from very valuable areas that were taken from them and moved into areas like Nuristan to cause trouble... but those areas are, quite literally, a stretch for the Taliban, where their ability to supply their troops, generate income, recruit, and get aid from the locals is both less and more questionable. That's why the ANA were able to ambush and kill a bunch of foreign jihadists going into Nuristan, while the US have been able to take advantage of a Taliban offensive that has so far failed to materialize, in order to clear strategic approaches into Afghanistan and lock them down with increasingly effective local troops.

There are several places like Nuristan where the Taliban escaped into when places like Kandahar were locked down by the Coalition forces... but holding territory, in itself, isn't necessarily of strategic importance. Sometimes, it's counterproductive. I would argue that a lot of the places the Taliban supposedly control not only aren't particularly worth holding, but also a potential liability to them. Unsupported pawns.

I find it kind of amazing, frankly, that the US have such a high operational tempo lately, with relatively low casualties. May is looking especially good... so far there have only been three NATO fatalities this month. That is actually somewhat shocking, considering that the Taliban launched their big "spring offensive", throwing over 100 Taliban at Kandahar, only to be beaten back from major town centers, badly mauled, and then surrounded in a hotel by Afghan security forces... while at the same time, making it abundantly clear that they're all for indiscriminately killing Afghan civilians.

That's not only a failed offensive, but a completely counterproductive way to wage an insurgency that shows their level of desperation. They're going after "weak" Afghan targets, because going after NATO troops is too hard and they can't maintain the kind of losses they'd take... but they're *still* losing, and they're turning the locals into their enemies and ANA and Afghan police into heroes. The locals are all for a Taliban that kills foreigners, perhaps... but not ones that indiscriminately terrorizes locals.
posted by markkraft at 1:51 AM on May 9, 2011

Good Day Brandon
The Counterpunch article I recommended was by Conn Hallinan.

Oh, quite right, you did mention that one first. My apologies, I thought you had recommended Volcano of Lies twice. Fine, let's take a look at the Counterpunch article by Conn Hallinan.

He says there were three helicopters. Other reports indicate there were four. Hmm suspect. Then there's this sixth paragraph:

Gen. Hammad Gul, former head of the ISI, told the Financial Times on May 3 that the ISI knew where he was, but regarded him as "inactive." Writing in the May 5 Guardian (UK), author Tariq Ali says that a "senior" ISI official told him back in 2006 that the spy organization knew where bin Ladin was, but had no intention of arresting him because he was "The goose that laid the golden egg." In short, the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader helped keep the U.S. aid spigot open.

*Sighs*

Aaaand we're back to use Hammad Gul as a source, the guy who said in an interview that he has not had contact with the ISI for over 20 years. Now he's saying he knows what the ISI activities were and that that he's been in contact with them. Is it possible he's lying and has been in some sort, if not regular, contract with the ISI. Of course, but doesn't make him a reliable source. Especially since he said Israel planned 9/11. Not exactly a paragon of sanity.

That said, the speculation about Pakistan knowing about the raid are interesting, particularly with the US being in Pakistan for just under 3 hours, so it does seem hard to believe the US would be able to accomplish that, stealth helicopter or not. I've heard other stories that said Obama called Pakistan's president after the raid began, to get them to stand down. Nothing definitive though.

I have a lot of respect for you especially as you are a knowledgeable political junky however sometimes I think you might have lost a bit of your objectivity.
The White House definitely seems to be struggling in the Fog of War

Everyone struggles in the fog of war, that's why it's called the fog of war.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:53 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

General Hamid Gul is a slippery one and if he says he has had no contact with ISI for over 20 years he is most definitely lying.
Maybe no formal contact but ...
He was arrested by Benazir Bhutto
He has also stated that the Taliban is the future
He has been described as as a political ideologue of terror (admittedly by Zadari).
Tariq Ali comes from Lahore and though I don't always agree with him I believe his contacts are probably extremely sound.
Wikileaks gave an impression that Hamid Gul acts as a ‘front man’ and a ‘proxy’ for the ISI
posted by adamvasco at 4:50 AM on May 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

General Hamid Gul is a slippery one...

Which makes him a bad idea for a source, yes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:08 AM on May 9, 2011

I think you need to having your Monday morning argument with Coll Hallinan.
Hallinan mentions Gulin the FT and separately Tariq Ali in the Guardian. Nowhere does he indicate that Gul was Tariq Ali's source. What he shows are pieces in two UK newspapers each having a decidedly different agenda. Killing the Golden Goose is highly plausable as the Pakistanis with their deep state machine the ISI have proved highly adept at milking the USA. ($20 billion since 2002).
The Army is the Economic Power in Pakistan. So much so that it is said by many Pakistanis that Most Countries have an Army but here the Army has a Country.
posted by adamvasco at 6:01 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think you need to having your Monday morning argument with Coll Hallinan.

The point is that citing him as source, as nickyskye did above, doesn't really clear things up, especially since in the nickyskye comment, Gul says President Obama knew Bin Laden has been dead for years.

Now, you're linking a story that has Gul saying the ISI knew where Bin Laden was, but considered him inactive and liked the money his name helped bring in from the US.

Is it possible Gul is playing sides, giving whatever story is needed for whatever audience? Of course. Hell, it's probable. But that makes him an unreliable source, whether it's him giving an interview on CNN that nickyskye links to or in the article by Hallinan. Throw in the fact that he's blaming the Jews for perpetuating the 9/11 attack as revenge for Bush stealing the 2000 US election and a darn interesting source whose utterances shouldn't be trotted out as proof of anything.

Hallinan mentions Gulin the FT and separately Tariq Ali in the Guardian. Nowhere does he indicate that Gul was Tariq Ali's source.

Never meant to imply he did, just that bringing him up throws a monkey wrench in the machine of believability. Yet you seem ok with that, but it bother's you with the Obama administration. Why is it seemingly ok in one case, but not the other?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:27 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Because I expect the Pakistani political spokespeople on whatever side to lie as been frequently seen before. Gul will speak to whichever audience he is trying to Spin.
I do not expect the White House and thus the US media to Spin quite so much and that is what has caused the unease here.
It was CNN that quoted Gul; I think nickyskye just pointed it out and says she was "pretty astounded". Whatever it's a derail. I see no reason to call her a conspiracy theory freak. She just seems to have valid concerns which are also reflected by many within and many more without the USA; after all Frontier justice is not unknown in / from your country.
I am not opinionating here just pointing out a fact that should be recognized.
posted by adamvasco at 6:55 AM on May 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hillary Clinton photoshopped out of iconic photo in Hasidic Newspaper.
posted by sotonohito at 7:06 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Because I expect the Pakistani political spokespeople on whatever side to lie as been frequently seen before. Gul will speak to whichever audience he is trying to Spin.

Exactly, so when you're linking to an article that mentions what Gul says and takes it as truth, then that's probably not a article one can take seriously.

I do not expect the White House and thus the US media to Spin quite so much and that is what has caused the unease here.

Why, you seem to make a habit of pointing out how untruthful

It was CNN that quoted Gul; I think nickyskye just pointed it out and says she was "pretty astounded". Whatever it's a derail.

No, it's vital point that nickskye posted the link as some sort of truth to be considered, when the man contradicts his story in the space of 20 seconds and is, by your own admission, a slippery one. It begs the question of whether she even looks at or reads the numerous links she posts.

I see no reason to call her a conspiracy theory freak. She just seems to have valid concerns which are also reflected by many within and many more without the USA; after all Frontier justice is not unknown in / from your country. I am not opinionating here just pointing out a fact that should be recognized.

She's being called a conspiracy nut because she's linking to crazy conspiracy shit. It's that simple.

I don't understand the point you're getting out with the Frontier justice quip or what it has to do with anything we've been discussing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:24 AM on May 9, 2011

And presto, she's back again. And this time she's brought friends.

Yoinked straight from the front page of, where else, Reddit.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 7:24 AM on May 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

Heh. I can't wait until the U.S. has a woman president, and they will be running photos like this on their front page.
posted by taz at 7:36 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

"SOMEONE ANNOUNCES ISRAEL-PALESTINE PEACE ACCORD"
posted by taz at 7:41 AM on May 9, 2011

Heh. I can't wait until the U.S. has a woman president, and they will be running photos like this on their front page.

I can't help but wonder how they can possibly ignore the existence of Golda Meir.

They're extremist nutjobs. A disgrace to Judaism.
posted by zarq at 7:43 AM on May 9, 2011

I'm curious as to why the newspaper couldn't have just thrown a virtual veil or shroud over Clinton, to avoid overstimulating their readers. I realize a policy is a policy, but you'd think there might be a voice of sanity somewhere, saying, "We could acknowledge her presence without displaying any identifiable parts."
posted by notashroom at 7:48 AM on May 9, 2011

Comrade_robot wrote: I am curious why you attribute this to deliberate malice rather than miscommunication.

I actually attribute it to a desire to avoid confronting mistakes.

It's possible that Obama simply misspoke, but I can't see how "miscommunication" would lead someone to invent a new codename - "Jackpot" for OBL instead of "Geronimo". And I'll say one thing for Obama - he's been very precise. He said OBL was killed "after a firefight" and that turned out to be exactly what had happened. I'll take his word against that of most White House commentators any day.

Incidentally, when I first heard that OBL's codename was Geronimo I thought the reasoning behind it was obvious - they were both guerrilla leaders who fought against the USA and were famous for retreating to caves to avoid capture. It's a name that fits him, in a way that "jackpot" doesn't. Using "Geronimo" to describe the act of killing him just doesn't make sense.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:53 AM on May 9, 2011

Obama doesn't need to know what the specific codewords used in the operation are does he? He's not on the radio to the SEALs on the ground, he's getting feedback through several intermediary layers of military communication and the fact that he doesn't know who's called what or what a specific codeword event means is hardly relevant.

When the SEALs report back "Geronimo" what happens is that the message is passed along until the military liaison turns to Obama and says "they've got him" or whatever else that code means to them. To see confusion from a man who doesn't have these codes memorised (since he's not actually running the op) is hardly a big deal.

w/r/t "Geronimo" - choosing a code name that is indicative of a specific individual is a no-no. Even when something is code word compartmentalised or SCI/SAP you don't make it obvious what a mission involves. I believe there was a sidebarred post about this a short time ago and that has in fact been referenced in thread. I'd argue that "Geronimo" doesn't actually bring to mind OBL however. I can't think of many people who would associate the two men for the reasons you've suggested. You're relating Geronimo to Osama since they both hid in a cave from an empire so you might as well throw Han Solo in the mix as well.
posted by longbaugh at 8:36 AM on May 9, 2011

But Geronimo suggests a very significant individual target. That's what I would think of, at any rate. It seems like a very bad code word in this instance even aside from ethnic considerations.
posted by taz at 8:46 AM on May 9, 2011

Hasn't 'Geronimo' long been a word used by US Forces as a rallying cry when going into battle? At least, this is what I remember from the war comics I used to read as a kid. Like, when the paratroopers jump out of a plane, they'd each yell 'Geronimo.' Has this never caused upset in the past? I'd think on the contrary: his name is being invoked because he was a tough badass. I'd think the same would have applied, pre-mission (i.e. before he was revealed to be quite a diminished, pathetic figure), to the spectral OBL.
posted by Flashman at 9:06 AM on May 9, 2011

Frontier Justice; a viewpoint which I find myself in favor with. Mansfield is a Barrister and QC.
posted by adamvasco at 9:30 AM on May 9, 2011

Yep, it's an American cultural trope to yell "Geronimo!" before jumping headlong into a dangerous situation. It might not sound the same way to foreign ears, but I think most Americans would hear it this way.
posted by saulgoodman

There is some cultural data to support this. This occasion i relate is when my uncle jumped out of a burning bomber. "Geronimo" was used at his flight school when they practised with parachutes. Another clan memeber went through SEAL and advanced para assault/advanced Ranger training. "Geronimo" is also used today though i can't find an offical motto.

nice take on Gul adamavasco, spot on.
posted by clavdivs at 9:39 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'll say this: it certainly makes more sense security-wise for it to be an after-the-fact codeword relaying the outcome than a target or operation codeword... so at least in terms of logic, I'd be more inclined toward reports that it was used to convey capture/kill rather than the codeword to identify bin Laden.
posted by taz at 10:16 AM on May 9, 2011

There is some cultural data to support this. This occasion i relate is when my uncle jumped out of a burning bomber. "Geronimo" was used at his flight school when they practised with parachutes.

When I was a kid in WHITE suburban Canada (circa 1970) we'd shout "Geronimo" when we did cannoballs into the neighbours' pool. Yeah, I guess we knew it was the name of some kickass Indian warrior, but mainly, we just liked the way it sounded when shouted as loud as possible.

"GERRRR-ONI-MOOOOAHHHHHH!!!!!"
posted by philip-random at 10:21 AM on May 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

She's being called a conspiracy nut because she's linking to crazy conspiracy shit.

Dang, Brandon, you're being hurtful to me with your insults. Really. Please stop. It's one thing to disagree and give examples of which points you disagree with and another to lob insults because I linked to a website you don't like. There is a human being sitting on this side of the monitor and honestly, I'm shocked by what seems to be your repeated offensiveness towards me in this thread. I have not spoken to you like that, even though I disagree with you. I will not be bullied by people in this thread out of either having doubts, expressing those doubts or speculating, which is part of trying to figure out a doubtful situation.

There have been so many discrepancies in the details of this OBL death story. I wonder even if that is deliberate. It makes no sense, or maybe it does, I don't know.

I linked to one not liked website when talking about the Taliban/Osama connection to the Argentinain oil company, Bridas, (now owned 50% by China), when I stated "Osama bin Laden (who issued his fatwa against the West in 1998) advised the Taliban to sign with Bridas". I have since linked to other sites as a back up for the information given in that story. That was not acknowledged, only repeated harping that I linked to one not-liked website.

It is (citing The Times) not a conspiracy theory that the Bridas oil company did business with the Taliban, (citing the Argentinian paper, Clarin, in Spanish), with Osama ("According to the American press, Bridas had on several occasions with the blessing of a part of the Saudi royal family and Osama bin Laden himself.") and (citing Wikipedia) the Taliban have been doing business with Big Oil. It's a geopolitical fact, written about by many.

If you want to have a conversation, fine.

I've speculated in this thread that there are vested interests in oil as a possible reason for the various countries involved in this story about OBL, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States to be less than truthful. There is a precedent for that doubt with the US invasion of Iraq based on the weapons of mass ~~deception~~ destruction. The US government lying about oil being a motivation for combat and sending in the US troops has been the reality based, not loony, not conspiratorial, case in the past.

In the past the US gov has lied, Pakistan gov has lied, Afghanistan gov has lied. ALL parties in this story have lied about major issues at one time or another. It is natural, imo, to question lying governments when they tell a story, to figure out what parts of the story may be true and what might not be true.
posted by nickyskye at 10:22 AM on May 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

There have been so many discrepancies in the details of this OBL death story. I wonder even if that is deliberate. It makes no sense, or maybe it does, I don't know.

Then stop speculating.
posted by grubi at 10:26 AM on May 9, 2011

... use of the word Geronimo was because some of the first paratroopers ...

Yep ... and a movie about them: 'Geronimo: The U.S. Airborne in World War II.'
posted by ericb at 10:28 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Then stop speculating. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.
posted by adamvasco at 10:30 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Guys, it's impossible to reason people out of a position that they did not arrive at through reason.
posted by Justinian at 10:39 AM on May 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

untrue, though it has the hallmarks of being correct.
posted by clavdivs at 10:43 AM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

There is a framework common to many ideologies which holds the US to be all-powerful, all-capable, and all-knowing. It shows up both in rah-rah jingoistic narratives where the US's might makes right, and it shows up in conspiracy theories where every inconsistency is first assumed, not only without evidence but against evidence and further against basic reasoning, to be a deliberate deception intended to further some goal.

Neither one of these frameworks allows for a more realistic, but less predictable and in some ways more frightening framework which sees the US as not being much more efficient or reliable than any other large organization - where errors are frequently made, bees get in important persons' bonnets, luck is relied upon more often than we'd like, and even the "best and the brightest" are as lost as we are.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:48 AM on May 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Dang, Brandon, you're being hurtful to me with your insults.

It's not personal. If your disbelief of the Obama administration's various recountings of the raid (which seems quite reasonable), you're posting some out there links and speculations. Other people have noted that and asked what the hell. You've mostly ignored all of that and continued posting similar links which are contradictory and not what you post they are.

And now you're saying people are bullying you and still refusing to deal with the numerous questions about your comments, or taking responsibility for you comments about leaving people to their "simplicity and jubilation," acting wounded now and only mentioning on aspect of the various links you posted, the TAPI stuff.

Post what you like, but don't expect people not call you information and links they find contradictory and not as factual as you think.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:49 AM on May 9, 2011

Skepticism is a smart default position. Links to interesting information that introduce doubt about/alternative parsing of Official Version should be welcome, and I think they usually are... and ideally this leads to some crowd-sourcing and discussion of facts and reports to try to tease things out. But I think the problem here was the huge linkdumps that seemed to be specifically in aid of X Theory (where X changed over time), as opposed to more agnostic information sharing.

I do think, though, that we all really do need to be wary of becoming reactively credulous as backlash against all the right-wing Birther, Truther, etc. conspiracy stuff.

Steady on, everyone.
posted by taz at 12:15 PM on May 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter: untrue, though it has the hallmarks of being correct.
posted by scalefree at 12:25 PM on May 9, 2011

everything we know is wrong
posted by philip-random at 1:30 PM on May 9, 2011

I think the problem here was the huge linkdumps that seemed to be specifically in aid of X Theory (where X changed over time)

Quite. If one's position is 'I don't know, I'm just asking questions/gathering information/doing research,' then linkdumps are not the way to go. It's better to save or bookmark articles and sort through them in your own time until you arrive at a conclusions. If you have questions, then just ask questions, don't post 10 articles that seem slightly-possibly relevant and then say 'well I have questions.' At best a bunch of links without a coherent theory looks disorganized; at worst, it looks like a deliberate attempt to derail the discussion.

the time for linkdumps is when you have a coherent, clear, and defensible argument to make, and each link provides factual support for an assertion within that argument. It's hard work and that's tedious, but it's a necessity on a community weblog like MeFi, in which one is sharing a thread with peers. If you want to use a web page as your open-source research notebook, then you'd be better off creating a wiki or blog of your own.

Posting page-long linkdumps that take 20 minutes apiece to audit and which simultaneously disclaim any kind of conclusory value are the equivalent of doing cannonball dives into the common pool while saying that it doesn't count as a dive because you didn't jump from the diving board.
posted by anigbrowl at 1:31 PM on May 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

The O Files: The truth is [not] out there. I want to [dis]believe.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:36 PM on May 9, 2011

The problem is that so-called skepticism is not really skepticism at all when it necessitates extra credulity and extra narrative in other areas. To believe that OBL did not die in the recent raid is to believe in a semi-coherent hodgepodge of the silliest kind of conspiracy-mongering - a conspiracy which would require the collusion of the US, the ISI, Al Qaeda, and all forms of the mainstream media, including both Western outlets and Al-Jazeera. It's not in the least bit skeptical to believe that OBL didn't die in the recent raid - it's credulous beyond all reason.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:38 PM on May 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's like the plot to COMA without the sexy sheets.
posted by clavdivs at 1:44 PM on May 9, 2011

I wonder if perhaps OBL didn't die in the recent raid... wait, wait hear me out... he was there, but the SEALS didn't actually kill him - perhaps they made a show of killing him for any witnesses present, but actually took him alive, whisked away to one of their black sites.
As Joe said a couple of days ago, it really isn't very sensible, from a strategic point of view, to eliminate such a valuable intelligence asset. In this scenario, OBL is essentially dead to the world, and the CIA is now free to torture him to their heart's content.
posted by Flashman at 2:35 PM on May 9, 2011

...until that comes out as it inevitably would and it's a complete debacle for everyone.
posted by gerryblog at 2:48 PM on May 9, 2011

I like your scenario. In it, does every family that was harmed by the 9-11 attacks also get an opportunity to torture OBL? On second thought, meh, I prefer my Elvis is Still Alive theory a little better.
posted by jabberjaw at 2:57 PM on May 9, 2011

it really isn't very sensible, from a strategic point of view, to eliminate such a valuable intelligence asset

To be honest, unless he were naked and reaching for the ceiling, I would not be willing to risk anyone's life on the chance that he wasn't wearing an explosive vest. Suicide bombing is such a consistent hallmark of AQ that it seems like a distinct probability; perhaps better to shoot from across the room first, and conduct a body search second.

Intelligence-wise, I am not so sure he would be extremely valuable. He doesn't want to know too much about the locations or contact details of people lower down the chain, but directing investigators to blow up or raid the wrong targets would be an excellent way to either retaliate against personal enemies or tip off one's close associates that one was still in the game, albeit held incommunicado somewhere.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:59 PM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reiterating that my doubts were never about OBL being dead. I wondered about the specifics, details of when and where; expressed an interest in the many discrepancies that came out in the first several days of the story; also wondered about the motivation for his assassination taking place at this time, rather than in the decade between 2001 and now.

Sticherbeast: conspiracy which would require the collusion of the US, the ISI, Al Qaeda, and all forms of the mainstream media, including both Western outlets and Al-Jazeera.

Okay, challenge accepted: Let me offer you a past example. However, Al Jazeera was founded in 1996. I can offer you an example or two in the 1970's and 1980's.

Example #1: The ISI colluded, when Gul was head, as was mentioned upthread, (he thought the “Taliban is the future” for a stable and progressive Afghanistan) with the Taliban and the CIA, when Al Qaeda was connected with the Taliban.

The dates: "Hamid Gul served as the director general of Pakistan''s Inter Services Intelligence...He was instrumental in the anti-Soviet support of the mujahideen in the Afghanistan War of 1979-89, a pivotal time during the Cold War, and in establishing the Taliban. "

Al-Qaeda was founded by OBL sometime around 1988.

Citing Al Jazeera: "Al-Qaeda enjoyed the Taliban's protection and a measure of legitimacy as part of their Ministry of Defense, although only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan."

Al Qaeda was allied with the Taliban from 1988 when they were formed and 1998, when OBL was a major financier of the mujahideen groups.

So there is an example of "the collusion of the US, the ISI, Al Qaeda, and all forms of the mainstream media".

Example #2 The CIA's part in the heroin business between Afghanistan/Pakistan at that time.

Example #3. According to Steve Galster's book, The Afghan Pipeline (readable free online): Widespread corruption also exists among the rebel leaders but has gone practically unnoticed in the U.S. thanks to CIA propaganda. The same kinds of things that tarnished the contra’s image, such as killing civilians, drug smuggling and embezzlement are practiced by many Afghan rebels. Taking no prisoners, assassinating suspected government collaborators, destroying government built schools and hospitals, killing “unpious” civilians are just a few of the inhumane acts they have carried out. But the picture we receive of the rebels in the U.S. is of an uncorrupt, popular group of freedom loving people who aspire toward a democratic society.

The CIA and the State Department have worked hard to project this image. In 1984 Walter Raymond, on loan to the NSC from the CIA, “suggested” to Senator Humphrey (RNH) that Congress finance a media project for the rebels that would shed favorable light on the rebels’ side of the war.
posted by nickyskye at 3:19 PM on May 9, 2011

conspiracy which would require the collusion of the US, the ISI, Al Qaeda, and all forms of the mainstream media, including both Western outlets and Al-Jazeera.

And the central factor for all of them to be colluding would be that it would be advantageous to each entity for them to join together to do so.

Widespread corruption also exists among the rebel leaders but has gone practically unnoticed in the U.S. thanks to CIA propaganda. The same kinds of things that tarnished the contra’s image, such as killing civilians, drug smuggling and embezzlement are practiced by many Afghan rebels.

Well, I have enough skepticism that the moment I hear any group beng lauded as "an uncorrupt, popular group of freedom loving people who aspire toward a democratic society," I immediately think, "Bullshit." And I think most Americans have learned the hard way not to believe propaganda like this from the government. Precisely because of past issues like our support of the contras.

I don't see how this particular story of us going into Pakistan and taking out bin Laden would benefit both Al-Jazeera and Fox News, Al Qaeda and the ISI, etc., though. The interests involved are too diverse to converge on this issue.
posted by misha at 3:56 PM on May 9, 2011

Nor do you give evidence that these people were even speaking to each other past the late 80's.

Giving evidence that these guys were speaking to each other after the 80's was not part of the point. Giving an example as a collusion between the CIA/ISI/Al Qaeda and the media was.

The statement was, the silliest kind of conspiracy-mongering - a conspiracy which would require the collusion of the US, the ISI, Al Qaeda, and all forms of the mainstream media, including both Western outlets and Al-Jazeera

My doubt that OBL may have been killed in this raid was considered "conspiracy mongering", conspiracy which would require the collusion of the US, the ISI, Al Qaeda, and all forms of the mainstream media

No date limits to that statement were given.

Al Jazeera has on its website the video of Benazir Bhutto in 2007, stating OBL was already dead. I believed that video when it came out. So it was a surprise when on Al Jazeera OBL was reported to be dead, again, last week.

Nothing you're posting indicates that all of those various people getting together at one time to further a single goal.

CIA/Taliban/ISI-Pakistan government and doing heroin business is not a single goal/conspiracy?

You haven't brought the media into it at all

The CIA/Taliban/Pakistani government collusion in an international mega-dollar heroin business was reported in the media as far back as 1980, when I first read about it in the International Herald Tribune, when I was living in India. It was on the back page in the entertainment section and, if memory serves, it was written by Bruce Chatwin but not sure about that.

CIA/ISI head/Taliban doing oil business and conspiracy to whitewash the Taliban atrocities in the media by a United States Senator and the US State Department is not a single goal/conspiracy?
posted by nickyskye at 4:56 PM on May 9, 2011

Another discrepancy, this time re the laughably called "mansion" this is a raw concrete hulk of a building: (citing The Guardian) Osama bin Laden hideout 'worth far less than US claimed' Pakistan property experts say US government description of '$1m mansion' was way off the mark, as further exaggerations come to light.
posted by nickyskye at 5:03 PM on May 9, 2011

The CIA/Taliban/Pakistani government collusion in an international mega-dollar heroin business was reported in the media as far back as 1980, when I first read about it in the International Herald Tribune, when I was living in India.

Completely irrelevant. 1980 predates Al-Jazeera, Al Qaeda, and OBL's position as a self-appointed enemy of the USA. The CIA putting out PR pieces in order to smooth out its Russia-bankruptin', oil-pumpin', heroin-side-dealin' lifestyle has nothing in common with multiple branches of the US Gov't, several disparate media outlets, the government of Pakistan, and Al Qaeda itself all working in concert to pretend that OBL was killed in a recent raid.

The CIA pumping money to fund anti-Russian forces is not the same thing as, years later, these forces forming, variously, ultra-orthodox Islamist states and international terrorist organizations expressly against the USA.

You also omit the fact that Bhutto retracted her statement that OBL was dead. Does this discrepancy mean that you are lying about OBL being alive or dead, or is it simply the product of you being a human being like the rest of us, who sometimes unintentionally obscures or misremembers inconvenient facts?

It's also curious that you supposedly believed her at the time, even though she presented absolutely no evidence whatsoever of her claim. Why is the late Benazir Bhutto held to a lower standard of evidence than...well, the rest of the entire world, so it would seem? She says that OBL is dead, and you believed her, and you apparently kept believing this even she retracted this, even though Al Qaeda never copped to it, even though OBL was producing new messages after she said this?

But when the US government says OBL is dead, you don't believe them, so fine, but then there are witnesses to the raid and then Al Qaeda itself confirms the kill, but you still don't believe them?

So...what is your standard of evidence here? Why is there no consistent standard of evidence?
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:23 PM on May 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ooh, look, sharks! I wonder if we can jump them!
posted by five fresh fish at 5:36 PM on May 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

I apologize. Here, have some GWB time travel.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:41 PM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Al Jazeera has on its website the video of Benazir Bhutto in 2007, stating OBL was already dead.

Yes, and there's abundant evidence that Benazir Bhutto was completely mistaken about this. Al Jazeera also has quotes from Osama bin Laden criticizing Barack Obama, who was elected president the year after Bhutto was assassinated. So if your theory is correct, virtually every audio or video tape purporting to be from bin Laden over the last 10 years is a fake, and Al Jazeera is doing as much to perpetuate this fakery as anyone else.

CIA/ISI head/Taliban doing oil business and conspiracy to whitewash the Taliban atrocities in the media by a United States Senator and the US State Department is not a single goal/conspiracy?

What atrocities? The Taliban didn't exist as a formal organization until 1994.
posted by anigbrowl at 5:44 PM on May 9, 2011

Attorney General Eric Holder still wants to close Guantanamo, but he does not think that OBL's death has sped this along.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:49 PM on May 9, 2011

Completely irrelevant.

Why? It's an example of collusion between the CIA/ISI/Taliban and the media. Yes, it's true Al Jazeera did not exist until 1996. but it's an example of a collusion between those elements.

I believed Benazir Bhutto for a number of reasons, among them, she had nothing to gain by stating that. It was stated simply. The man she said who had assassinated OBL was Omar Sheikh, another terrorist and murderer, who, from the little I know about him, sounds like a psychopath.

She died a month after making that statement. I have never read of a retraction. Would you be so kind as to offer a cite for her retraction. I'd be most interested.

Many people have doubts about things the US government says. With good reason. I am among those people who is grateful for increasing transparency when it comes to any government's actions. Thanks to the web this transparency has greatly improved over the last decade, which is wonderful.

There are some things the US government says that are more believable than others. I don't often put a lot of focus on having doubts. I did not feel confident in the information about the Fukushima nuclear reactor crisis when it initially came out, that every thing was all ok, and dug into researching that over a couple of months. That was an example of having doubts validated.

From the time I first read about the CIA/Taliban and Pakistan doing heroin business in 1980, then heard about it from people who saw it first hand, it so shocked me that from that time until this I have had doubts about the veracity of any of the dealings between that particular combination, US/Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Oh, and thanks for the civil conversation. Much appreciated.

Another wondering: One thing that seemed out of place and I wonder if there are ideas about this. In the short videos posted recently of OBL in his house, it seemed unusual to me to see his beard dyed black. Muslim men according to the Koran can dye their beard red or yellow, but not black. Or is that not true?

OBL was a staunch Muslim and so it seemed out of place that he would use hair dye for his beard. Especially black. I've never seen that on any Muslim man I knew in Pakistan, India or Indonesia.
posted by nickyskye at 6:01 PM on May 9, 2011

She died a month after making that statement. I have never read of a retraction. Would you be so kind as to offer a cite for her retraction. I'd be most interested.

Maybe you should try reading this thread more carefully.
posted by anigbrowl at 6:40 PM on May 9, 2011

I believed Benazir Bhutto for a number of reasons, among them, she had nothing to gain by stating that. It was stated simply. The man she said who had assassinated OBL was Omar Sheikh, another terrorist and murderer, who, from the little I know about him, sounds like a psychopath.

"Jeffery Dahmer killed Ted Bundy." I have nothing to gain from that statement. It's simply stated. Jeffery Dahmer was a psychopath and a murderer.

She died a month after making that statement. I have never read of a retraction. Would you be so kind as to offer a cite for her retraction. I'd be most interested.

She referred to OBL being alive after the David Frost interview. Either that's a retraction, or she believes in zombies.

From the time I first read about the CIA/Taliban and Pakistan doing heroin business in 1980

The Taliban didn't exist at that time. Neither did Al Qaeda. While some of these movements would, over a period of years, evolve into other movements, the CIA dealing with mujas in the 80s is not the same thing as them dealing with the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda now.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:45 PM on May 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Among videos confiscated from bin Laden compound: Jessamyn explains why she deleted Osama's comment on Metafilter.
posted by taz at 10:50 PM on May 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

I believed Benazir Bhutto for a number of reasons, among them, she had nothing to gain by stating that. It was stated simply.

This borders on breathtaking naïveté. Bhutto was, whatever her positive attributes, a scheming and probably utterly corrupt politician from Pakistan's semi-Westernized elite. She certainly had motives for saying this, among them, selling a pacified version of Pakistan to the Western media, and perhaps offering cover to then-President Musharraf. She was running for the country's Presidency herself.

But more to the point, she had no real expertise other than living in the region. She's a politician, a Radcliffe grad, not a counterterrorism expert. Even if you concede she was once PM, it's doubtful that the ISI gave her the keys to the kingdom -- they only passingly trust any civilian government.

The man she said who had assassinated OBL was Omar Sheikh, another terrorist and murderer, who, from the little I know about him, sounds like a psychopath.

And why would Sheikh assassinate bin Laden? Because he's a thrill killer?

The pat satisfaction with which you state this makes me suspect this entire quixotic quest is an attempt to defend the late Bhutto, someone you admire. I submit this admiration is misplaced, and certainly does not provide her statements with enough credence to refute straightforward claims from the US government.
posted by dhartung at 10:55 PM on May 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wired is the latest magazine to ask: Was the Hit on Bin Laden Illegal?

Was the attack on Osama bin Laden truly a CIA-dominated covert action, or was it a mostly military one? The distinction matters because different U.S. legal codes apply to each category. Covert operations fall under Title 50. Military ops, under Title 10. In either case, the killing of the Al Qaeda chief presents legal problems.

That’s why the White House has carefully avoided both definitions ....

posted by Joe in Australia at 11:29 PM on May 9, 2011

Al Jazeera also has quotes from Osama bin Laden criticizing Barack Obama, who was elected president the year after Bhutto was assassinated.

That about wraps it it up for this edition of snipe hunt.

That’s why the White House has carefully avoided both definitions ....

No, there is no way this could have been pulled off without the military.
posted by clavdivs at 12:48 AM on May 10, 2011

The US has been launching drone attacks into Pakistan for over a year.
Prior to election, Barack Obama stated, if he were president, Pakistan would be held accountable, and he would take out bin Laden in Pakistan if possible.
This was obviously not legal - but neither are the drones. And the Pakistani government has been pretending to cooperate while obstructing every US intention from the outset in 2001.

So please explain: why are we having this discussion now?
- Is bin Laden's life worth more than the innocent civilians who have died in drone attacks? Really?
- Are you scared of a Pakistani nuclear attack on the US? Really?
- Do you believe Pakistani officials more than you believe US officials? Really?

Actually, as much as I despise G.W. Bush and his administration, and as much as I believe they were/are puppets of big oil, I still trust them more than I trust Pakistani officials. Sorry about that.

In my opinion, we should have had more of this type of operation, and less of the drones. To me, drones are like terror-bombing. They may be targeted, but no one know how many innocent people are hit with the target. No one should be subjected to collective punishment.
That point of view can be and should be extended to the wars.

Does that mean I approve of all the ridiculous US attempts at assassination and supporting opposition groups is right? NO. It's wrong. But in the case of al Qaeda or Rote Armee Fraktion, or similar non-national, ideological freaks, one should go after the perpetrator, not the feckless humans in their environment.

It would be nice if the US could respect Pakistan as a sovereign nation. I'd like that, and so would everyone else. But Pakistan's government (or who ever actually rules that country) has decided, consciously, to play another game.
posted by mumimor at 5:53 AM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Have been skimming through the thread for the past several days. I need to think a bit before posting so that I can be sure of being coherent. In the meantime though, here's another related and interesting piece from Declan Walsh, in the Guardian.
posted by bardophile at 6:24 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

9-11 Widow asking questions
posted by mumimor at 6:56 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Welcome back, Bardophile, I hope you are OK
posted by mumimor at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2011

OBL was a staunch Muslim and so it seemed out of place that he would use hair dye for his beard. Especially black. I've never seen that on any Muslim man I knew in Pakistan, India or Indonesia.

"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, really! But things that I have no experience with are proof that something untoward is going on!"
posted by grubi at 7:06 AM on May 10, 2011

"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, really! But things that I have no experience with are proof that something untoward is going on!"

Well, not so much that, but rather the guy sanctioned killing people, be they soldiers or civilian women and children. He wanted governments overthrown. He followed religious beliefs as long as suited his ideas or goals.

Dying his beard black seems like a baby step on the scale of bad stuff he's done.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:16 AM on May 10, 2011

Quoting the article that mumimor just linked:
There are many unanswered questions and potential uncomfortable truths swirling around OBL's death.

Well, they must be all conspiracy nutcases then. Not.

Thanks anigbrowl for the link to the misha comment re Benazir Bhutto. I'd never listened to the Greta interview before.

There was no actual retraction by Benazir Bhutto that OBL was dead in the Greta Van Susteren interview. There was only the single use of the present tense in referring to OBL, saying "he must be rubbing his hands with glee".

Short answer why George W and his clan used pursuing OBL, ignoring any word of his possible death in 2007, as an excuse to stay in Afghanistan, Big Oil business.

But thanks to your mentioning the Greta Van Susteren telephone interview with Benazir Bhutto I did more research. It is possible that Benazir mentioned OBL in that telephone interview figuratively in the present tense, as one does a dead relative, "He'd be rolling over in his grave". But I don't think so. I came across a YouTuber with a classic New York accent, who offered an interesting possibility to why Benazir said what she did, that she meant to say "murdered Daniel Pearl, not murdered Osama Bin Laden. And that does make better sense to me.

Thanks for prompting some more thought on this.

Why else would the media not have jumped all over the Al Jazeera/David Frost interview? Had they done that in the month before Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, she might have made an actual retraction.

Misha's logic was that Bhutto couldn't have said what she did about OBL being dead because George W would have wanted to take credit for OBL's death. I don't think that's correct and the reason for that follows below.

Speculating on why it was in favor for there to be shifting info about what was going on in Afghanistan and for OBL not to be nabbed outright: Since George W was involved in Big Oil business and the TAPI pipeline was commenced in 1995 but was bogged down by Taliban sabotage in Afghanistan, it would make sense to use the chase for OBL as a reason to remain with a very expanded US military presence in Afghanistan and take control of the construction of the TAPI pipeline.

The US could not simply take over another country, Afghanistan, or Iraq, for an oil pipeline. So there had to be political reasons as an excuse for it. It has since been proven that the so called political reasons for the invasion of Iraq having "weapons of mass destruction", were false and that is was Big Oil that was the actual, true agenda for the invasion of Iraq, "the second largest oil reserves in the world".

Halliburton/Cheney had interests in Chevron Oil, which was the big US investor in the TAPI pipeline through Afghanistan. Unocal, which later merged with Chevron, included companies from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, said the TAPI pipeline was only do-able when stability in Afghanistan (including suppression of the Taliban) was secured. Citing Wikipedia, " CIA chief Bill Casey had revived the agency's practise of gaining intelligence from traveling businessmen. Marty Miller, one of Unocal's top executives." But it was in Unocal's/Chevron's favor to keep the focus on OBL, who had withdrawn from his relationship with the Taliban, because the Taliban were trying to negotiate their own Big Oil deal with Argentina, Bridas.

Afghanistan, belonged more, after all, to the Afghanis Taliban, than to the United States. On the one hand the US supported the Taliban as an anti-Soviet force but when the Taliban started their own Big Oil negotiations with the Argentinian company, Bridas, with OBL encouraging the Taliban to do that, the US came down hard on OBL.

OBL was the reason Bush gave for the US invasion of Afghanistan, as a response to the 9/11 events. Based on that logic, if the US government knew OBL was from 2008 (or before), in Pakistan, why did our troops not leave Afghanistan 3 or more years ago or attack Pakistan for harboring OBL/Al Qaeda?

The reason that seems logical to me was that the US was protecting its oil interests in TAPI. That mean controlling Afghanistan with a US, taxpayer paid military presence there (as it has in Iraq) while negotiating with Pakistan, Turkmenistan and India, an enemy of Pakistan but the potential biggest customer of the oil, all at the same time.

grubi, would you be so kind as to explain what you mean? Osama considered himself to be a Muslim militant. Muslims did not like being represented by Osama but he considered himself a Muslim. That was, supposedly, the reason he was buried at sea by the US government, for example. citing Wikipedia: "Bin Laden also said only the restoration of Sharia law would "set things right" in the Muslim world".

The black beard is not being compared to anything. It is simply not something that Muslim men do, in my knowledge of them, dying their beards black. The Koran encourages Muslim men to dye their beards with red or yellow, not black. So I wondered why in the videos his beard was dyed black and if somebody had an idea about that?
posted by nickyskye at 7:25 AM on May 10, 2011

My point was that she keeps saying how she's not a conspiracy nut, but then her speculation enters places that smell like conspiracy nut.

"He couldn't have dyed his beard! People don't do that!" Um, sure they do, when, as you mention, Brandon, one is doing whatever he wants anyway.
posted by grubi at 7:27 AM on May 10, 2011

It is possible that Benazir mentioned OBL in that telephone interview figuratively in the present tense, as one does a dead relative, "He'd be rolling over in his grave".

That's not the present tense. That's the conditional progressive.

Why else would the media not have jumped all over the Al Jazeera/David Frost interview?

Because there was never any evidence for it, and no one from Al Qaeda confirmed that OBL was dead, because he wasn't dead.

I remember an Ann Coulter column from some years back in which she asserted that OBL had been crushed under debris from a daisy cutter. There was no media storm about this assertion because there was no reason to believe a word of it.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:33 AM on May 10, 2011

Slate article on OBL's beard.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:35 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Another wondering: One thing that seemed out of place and I wonder if there are ideas about this. In the short videos posted recently of OBL in his house, it seemed unusual to me to see his beard dyed black. Muslim men according to the Koran can dye their beard red or yellow, but not black. Or is that not true?

OBL was a staunch Muslim and so it seemed out of place that he would use hair dye for his beard. Especially black. I've never seen that on any Muslim man I knew in Pakistan, India or Indonesia.

"I'm not a conspiracy theorist, really! But things that I have no experience with are proof that something untoward is going on!"

Jeez. Is that necessary?

I'm still, like bardophile, reading and reading all these links, and it's hard to keep up. I get where you're coming from Brandon Blatcher et al, but I guess it's a two way street. I mean, no one's commented at all on nickyskye's links about the TAPI and its possible function in an ongoing imperial drama in this region of the world. Stuff that does freight this situation without it necessarily pointing to a 'conspiracy' - that seems to me to be a bit of a thought terminating cliche when things are so complex. I don't know and I am content to keep reading, but yeah, I'm with Taz, go easy on the sledging.

Even if some of the wider reading is conflicting it's still providing a wider range of vision than I seem to be getting on my own out there. So, thanks all.
posted by honey-barbara at 7:38 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I mean, no one's commented at all on nickyskye's links about the TAPI and its possible function in an ongoing imperial drama in this region of the world.

I haven't read all of the links, but the general idea seems right. That pipeline is a big deal and there's lots of politics behind it. Pastabagel has been mentioning that a lot over the years.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:45 AM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, and further re: the beard:

Just because he was a self-styled terrorist, it does not mean that he was all that religious in other respects. Look at our own country, where we have ostentatious preachers from a religion that allegedly has something to say about camels passing through the eye of a needle. Just because there's a rule written down in the hadith or handed down by tradition or whatever, it doesn't mean that everyone in the real world actually follows it.

It's an obvious joke, but seriously: the guy openly celebrated the mass murder of civilians, and it's the beard you find religiously problematic? :)

Four Lions is a great fictionalized depiction of the conflict between violent fundamentalists and those who actually take their religion seriously. The main character, who is a terrorist, is deceptively Westernized in many ways, whereas his strictly religious brother wants desperately to free his brother from that lifestyle. There's also a humorous scene where a simple-minded terrorist has a profound misunderstanding as to whether or not being shown on a TV screen is haram.

The TAPI stuff is interesting, and I don't doubt that oil/gas interests propelled the Bush Doctrine, but I don't have too much to add to it.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:47 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Jeez. Is that necessary?

Yes. As long as people keep insisting they're not conspiracy nuts but then spew outlandish conspiracy nonsense, then, YES. YES, YES, YES.
posted by grubi at 7:47 AM on May 10, 2011

derail: She's not spewing: "Another wondering" "I wonder" "it seemed unusual" "Or is that not true" are tentative invitations to discuss. Your interpretations of her words are not so tentative or inviting.

I do agree with Sticherbeast, that religion is an ostentatious cover for otherwise maniacal sociopathic ideology. We shouldn't be surprised he's vain as well as murderous.
posted by honey-barbara at 7:58 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Say, honey-barbara, ever heard the term "weasel words"?
posted by grubi at 7:59 AM on May 10, 2011

I have now :)
posted by honey-barbara at 8:00 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

The black beard is not being compared to anything. It is simply not something that Muslim men do, in my knowledge of them, dying their beards black. The Koran encourages Muslim men to dye their beards with red or yellow, not black. So I wondered why in the videos his beard was dyed black and if somebody had an idea about that?

Hey, this guy was an evil phony terrorist, pretending to be a devout muslim. Every single thing he did was against all morals. Why not die his beard, too?
posted by mumimor at 8:08 AM on May 10, 2011

Die, beard, die!

And no, that's not German for "The, beard, the".
posted by grubi at 8:11 AM on May 10, 2011

Thanks for the link to the Slate article about the beard. It does say dying the beard with henna or katam is okay. But not that dying the beard black is okay. That's what I'm curious about. Black in the Koran is a no no. Forbidden.

that he was all that religious in other respects

Am not saying OBL was an authentic Muslim, only that he considered himself to be one and dying his beard black would not be keeping with that. It just seemed inconsistent with his identity, as he portrayed himself to other radical Islamicists.

OBL may have been a vain and he seems definitely a sociopath but by the rules of his chosen religion, dying a beard black is not permitted, it's expressly forbidden. His adherents were fundamentalist, radical Muslims, or said they were. So his public identity, of which he was aware, would be in keeping with that.

After researching it, Ssolved my own question just now. The Qu'ran says that dying the beard black is okay in war. "If a warrior (mujahid) used black hair dye in order to create awe and fear into the heart and mind of the enemy, then all the scholars agree that it is permissible." (al-Fatawa al-Hindiyya, 5/329)
posted by nickyskye at 8:15 AM on May 10, 2011

Holy mother am I glad I don't have cable news right now. I had to listen to my in-laws discuss the invasion and capture and how much torture had to do with getting the information and blah blah fucking blah... and then I went to the credit union today and then have some sort of cable news on and ... enough already.

It saddens me to realize that this assassination is the greatest accomplishment of the century for the U.S.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:29 AM on May 10, 2011

Misha's logic was that Bhutto couldn't have said what she did about OBL being dead because George W would have wanted to take credit for OBL's death. I don't think that's correct and the reason for that follows below.

Misha's logic was pretty specific:

Nickiskye, Bhutto did say that Osama bin Laden had been killed "years ago" in the interview with David Frost, but it was obviously a mistake. Why do I say that?

Because, when Butto was under house arrest, according to her own account, during a telephone interview with NPR, she mentioned asking the police why they were detaining her instead of searching for bin Laden...

So when you ignore or forget to include that in your response, it looks...I don't want to be harsh, but it doesn't look good, you know?

OBL was the reason Bush gave for the US invasion of Afghanistan, as a response to the 9/11 events. Based on that logic, if the US government knew OBL was from 2008 (or before), in Pakistan, why did our troops not leave Afghanistan 3 or more years ago or attack Pakistan for harboring OBL/Al Qaeda?

You linked to the Wikipedia page about the War in Afghanistan (2001-Present), which would take all morning to read and who knows how long to follow all the links in it. That sort of information dump isn't really useful, could you at least least link to the specific part that refers to what your comment or point?

Anyway, after doing a find on the page for "George", I came across this paragraph which indicates your statement about the reasons for the invasion are mistaken:

The aim of the invasion was to find Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking Al-Qaeda members to be put on trial, to destroy the organization of Al-Qaeda, and to remove the Taliban regime which supported and gave safe harbor to it. The George W. Bush administration stated that, as policy, it would not distinguish between terrorist organizations and nations or governments that harbored them.

To answer you question, Al-Qaeda was still in Afghanistan as was the Taliban so based on the Bush administration's own logic (whether you believe it or not), they had reason's to continue to be that country. Add in the fact that it border Pakistan and you've got a nice staging ground for raids into Pakistan while avoiding invading, which would be a disaster, politically and militarily.

On preview:
OBL may have been a vain and he seems definitely a sociopath but by the rules of his chosen religion, dying a beard black is not permitted, it's expressly forbidden. His adherents were fundamentalist, radical Muslims, or said they were. So his public identity, of which he was aware, would be in keeping with that.

Why are sticking to this viewpoint that Bin Laden faithfully followed religious tenants, when it's been plain as day for over a decade that he doesn't? He changed his mind on the targeting of civilians, as shown in the last link, you think it's impossible that he change his mind on dying beards?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:30 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why are sticking to this viewpoint that Bin Laden faithfully followed religious tenants

After researching it, Ssolved my own question just now

Here are some more quarters Blathcher, keep pumping baby.
posted by clavdivs at 8:44 AM on May 10, 2011

why in the videos his beard was dyed black and if somebody had an idea about that?

How is this a big deal, or even significant in any way whatsoever? Bin Laden was, quite literally, the most-wanted man in the world. Despite his apparent choice to hide in plain sight, it is not inconceivable that he would want to make some small changes in his appearance to render himself slightly less instantly recognizable to a casual observer.
posted by dersins at 8:46 AM on May 10, 2011

Here are some more quarters Blathcher, keep pumping baby.

The point is still relevant. She found a view that matched her previous notions and seemingly ignored an obvious explanation.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:48 AM on May 10, 2011

We could be prognosticating the future: understanding US-Pakistan relations, figuring out who'll inspire terrorists, seeing if this has affected the Taliban, etc.

But now it's an argument over Osama's goddamned beard.

Consider the shark jumped.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:49 AM on May 10, 2011

She found a view that matched her previous notions and seemingly ignored an obvious explanation.

Copy that. Just curious, why are you still playing the game?
posted by clavdivs at 8:58 AM on May 10, 2011

Hamlet: His beard was grizzled--no?
Horatio: It was, as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd.

(1.2.242)

The plot thickens! (The plot of Hamlet, I mean).
posted by Jody Tresidder at 9:00 AM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Investigators have discovered that the drapes did not match the prayer rug, if you know what I mean.
posted by found missing at 9:00 AM on May 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, said in 2007 that Osama had already been assassinated by Omar Sheikh.

If that's the case, how do you explain one of the released home videos of Osama? In the one in which he is flipping through channels on his satellite TV there's a graphic depicting both bin Laden and Obama (at 0:31), a graphic depicting the burning Twin Towers (0:46) and a brief film clip of Obama (1:28).

Or, is that video fake, too?
posted by ericb at 9:06 AM on May 10, 2011

Copy that. Just curious, why are you still playing the game?

1. Dislike conspiracy theories or antics, they feel like a twisting of truth, which bothers me.

2. Curious if my comments will matter.

3. I've got $2.50 left in quarters and another hours to kill.

4. Someone on the internet is wrong.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:06 AM on May 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

Or, is that video fake, too?

Conceivably. I mean, if Peter Jackson and company can sort of convince me that Balrogs are real and Elijah Wood is 3.5 feet tall, I'm willing to extend to Al Qaeda etc the ability to fabricate a little lo-res video.

Not that this in any way sways me toward believing that Osama is still alive and/or died years ago and/or never existed in the first place. I'm more or less with DNA evidence on that: more or less swayed but still harboring a quadrillionth or so of doubt.
posted by philip-random at 9:26 AM on May 10, 2011

U.S. Was Braced for Fight With Pakistanis in Bin Laden Raid

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”

Also:

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
posted by rosswald at 9:49 AM on May 10, 2011

We could be prognosticating the future: understanding US-Pakistan relations, figuring out who'll inspire terrorists, seeing if this has affected the Taliban, etc.

What do you think about these things?

I suspect the Obama administration and the current Pakistan government will get along somehow. However I can see Republicans throwing a monkey wrench in that and the Pakistani populace won't be happy to deal with their government if they give the appearance of dealing with the US. America's foreign aid to Pakistan will probably be less for the next few years, then slowly creep back up, assuming Obama wins in 2012 and I do.

Curious to see if anyone will attempt to step into Bin Laden's place.

The Taliban will be around for a while, just like the crazy far left and far right in the US.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:49 AM on May 10, 2011

good question. I doubt someone as visable (pardon the pun) as OBL was.

I do have a question that did make me go hmmm, the DNA evidence. I recall that the DNA confirmation was released the night of the raid. I thought DNA took time or is there some 6-24 hr test. A friend said no way could science have DNA that quick. (assumption)
Perhaps some sample was gathered before the raid.
posted by clavdivs at 10:10 AM on May 10, 2011

I had that concern, too, clavdivs. There's a NYT article linked upthread that said the test they did can yield results in hours if necessary.

(Makes you wonder why your average suspect has to wait three months all the time.)

The whole shebang seemed and seems really like it was rushed. And I don't like the reflexive tendency toward secrecy we seem to have evolved in our public doings. That is no way to run a society.
posted by Trochanter at 10:18 AM on May 10, 2011

Scientist: Quick DNA testing in bin Laden Case Reasonable: "DNA analysis can be completed in as little as six hours if it's a prioritized task.... it helped that the government already had a sample of Bin Laden family DNA for comparison to the body recovered in Pakistan. "

Bin Laden DNA ID Would be Fast and Easy Using 'Standard' PCR Tech, Experts Say: "...forensics experts have almost unanimously stepped forward to support the idea that the DNA testing – most likely Y-linked short tandem repeat PCR amplification and analysis – could easily have been performed in the amount of time and location it is purported to have been, using industry-standard products."

Sanjay Gupta Explains bin Laden DNA Testing: "To do a match...right away you have specific areas you can zero in on...that can take a much shorter time."
posted by Miko at 10:21 AM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

(Makes you wonder why your average suspect has to wait three months all the time.)

As the articles say: caseload.
posted by Miko at 10:30 AM on May 10, 2011

I'm sorry - second link ("PCR Tech") from GenomeWeb.
posted by Miko at 10:32 AM on May 10, 2011

I can't believe the beard is causing such a tizzy. Of course some Muslim men sometimes dye their hair and beards black. Even religious Muslim men. They are more likely to dye them with henna, but black is by no means unheard of.
posted by bardophile at 10:44 AM on May 10, 2011

The whole shebang seemed and seems really like it was rushed.

I would really, really, REALLY like someone to ask hard questions of John Brennan, who went from saying "Obama used his wife as shield while firing at the SEALS" to "Obama was unarmed, no wife was used as shield."

That's a big difference in statements and I'd love for some reporter to ask and/or trace why there is such a difference. I'm not saying it's impossible, but what the hell?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:46 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

For chrissakes can everyone just say bin Laden or OBL?
posted by rtha at 10:57 AM on May 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Why would we be talking about the Ohio Bankers League in this thread?
posted by koeselitz at 11:00 AM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

GODDAMIT.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:00 AM on May 10, 2011

"Obama used his wife as shield while firing at seals."

I'm hoping to find this painting on black velvet.
posted by found missing at 11:01 AM on May 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

I usually just refer to him as Percy Fitzbinladen as to avoid confusion.
posted by grubi at 11:10 AM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

the beard is causing such a tizzy. Of course some Muslim men sometimes dye their hair and beards black.

It's not causing me "a tizzy". The Koran says dying one's beard black is expressly forbidden, I simply wondered, asked a question, nobody answered it here and so I researched the answer for myself, where it says in the Koran that dying a beard black is okay for a warrior. That would be the reason in the decade I lived around Muslims in India, the month in Pakistan and week in Pakistan that I did not see one dyed black beard on a Muslim guy, only henna. Nor did I see it in any of my Pakistani relatives (my aunt married a Pakistani colonel).

The speculation that comes to mind, now knowing about the Koran saying it's okay for a warrior to dye his beard black, is that would be a non-verbal statement by OBL, who otherwise always wore his beard gray, to his men, he was at some distance from geographically, to encourage them to remain at war.

So when you ignore or forget to include that in your response, it looks...I don't want to be harsh, but it doesn't look good, you know?

I put greta van susteren benazir bhutto into google because misha's statement offered no link the interview. You will see if you do the same that the first link is a comment and the second link offers audio.This is the link to the Greta-Benazir interview audio I listened to. It only says "OBL is rubbing is hands in glee". The audio comes on automatically when one clicks on the page. I just listened and drank my coffee, didn't hear anything else, came back to this thread to reply.

Going back to the page now I see it says it's an excerpt. I just didn't see that.
posted by nickyskye at 11:55 AM on May 10, 2011

That's my problem with your speculation, though. You had a particular point of view and experience and tehn extrapolated from that... well, something else. You were trying to come to a conclusion and the easiest conclusion apparently wasn't enough. The Koran does or doesn't expressly forbid dying beards? So what? It's not important, considering there's proof the man dyed his beard.

If you are just asking questions, you'd do well to stop wording them so poorly. You're sniffing the edges of conspiracy theory and some of us are calling it out.
posted by grubi at 12:02 PM on May 10, 2011

Curious to see if anyone will attempt to step into Bin Laden's place.

Elusive ex-commando to replace bin Laden?
posted by ericb at 12:15 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

What is conspiratorial about wondering about the black beard? It's apparently forbidden in the Koran. It's an obscure Koranic reference that it's okay to dye one's beard black as a warrior.

I have doubted the US government's version of things, which is a reality based, plenty of proof in the past that the US government has lied.

Having questions and doubts are not conspiratorial. This thread feels like the Bush days when to doubt the US government was considered anti-American.
posted by nickyskye at 12:15 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

You are correct. It isn't conspiratorial. But, it is conspiracist.
posted by found missing at 12:21 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Obama used his wife as shield while firing at the SEALS" to "Obama was unarmed, no wife was used as shield."

GODDAMIT.

Consistently using Bin Laden avoids this
posted by cashman at 12:33 PM on May 10, 2011

But how do we know it was black. There could have been a reason if he had a blackbeard. I suggest. The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA for operational rationale for disquises use and need.

Troch, miko, thanks for the links on DNA.
posted by clavdivs at 12:34 PM on May 10, 2011

nickyskye: I wasn't saying that you were in a tizzy. The dyed beard sparked a bunch of comments on the thread, which is what I was talking about. I do not recall ever reading anything in the Quran about the dying of beards. My googling just now, having read your comment, leads me to this Hadith. It's not clear to me which collection of Hadith this is from. If you've found a citation from the Quran, I would appreciate it if you could quote the chapter and verse nos, so I can look it up. I haven't found a citation myself.

As I'm sure many posters here are aware, Islamic law uses Quran (God's Word), Hadith (the Prophet Mohammed's reported words), and Sunnah (the reported practice of the Prophet Mohammed) as its sources. Of these, only the Quran is regarded as infallible. There is much debate over the authenticity of various reports of the Prophet's words and deeds.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that there are people who have spent considerable amounts of time in South Asia without meeting any Muslim men who dyed their beards black. I'm just telling you that, growing up in a reasonably run-of-the-mill (vis a vis religious practice) Pakistani Muslim family, I know many religious Muslim men who DO dye their hair, and beards, black. People who keep beards for religious reasons, even. And they aren't warriors, either.
posted by bardophile at 12:42 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

It's apparently forbidden in the Koran.

Now I'm wondering why it needed to be specifically forbidden - except for the war-specific dye job - in the first place?

A second's idle thought suggests it's because of the deception implicitly created (i.e. the man with a discreetly dyed-black beard appears younger than he really is? Whereas the vivid hues of a henna job - since henna is allowed as a beard tint -are self-evidently not intended to deceive.)

Must have been a lot of old guys sporting suspiciously black beards around at one stage!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 12:43 PM on May 10, 2011

TIMELINE: The Hunt For Osama Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 12:43 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Consistently using Bin Laden avoids this

Hey, that sounds like great advice!

What is conspiratorial about wondering about the black beard? It's apparently forbidden in the Koran. It's an obscure Koranic reference that it's okay to dye one's beard black as a warrior.

It seemed like a point you were hung up on, as if there was some great mystery to it. You ignored ~~Obama's~~ Bin Laden's picking and choosing of which Muslim believe to follow, unless you're saying a good devout Muslim practices plotting and implementing murder and issuing fatwa's.

It only says "OBL is rubbing is hands in glee".

I am unaware of a man who's been dead for years being to able to do that, but I don't read a lot of science journals, so who knows.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:45 PM on May 10, 2011

This thread feels like the Bush days when to doubt the US government was considered anti-American.

In the trade we call this baiting with historical boo-boos or archived yawl. The most effective method to engage this is by reasoned counter-point, for example, Brandons' comments of late. You (NS) switch tactics with the same criteria under the guise of truth seeking. The real crime would to shut you down, but no one is doing that per say, responding yes, but this is also part of the right to opinion with-in acceptable modes of discourse which imo is intact.

now, Blatcher and i have a jewel heist to plan to pay out this Hummel habit.
posted by clavdivs at 12:46 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Having questions and doubts are not conspiratorial. This thread feels like the Bush days when to doubt the US government was considered anti-American.

You don't have doubts. You have a very strong opinion, which you are repeatedly and dishonestly framing as doubt and skepticism.

Imagine if this was a thread about the anniversary of the moon landing, and you continued to post links to blog potss about whether it was faked, and links to pictures and various bits of evidence that showed that the moon landing was faked, and expected us to either accept each bit of evidence or 'debunk it' and framed it all as 'just asking questions' or 'just being skeptical', when any rational skeptic would realize that the wildly implausible conspiracy proposed as an alternate version of reality is the more rightful target of that healthy skepticism.

What you are doing in this thread is pure, by-the-book, conspiracy theory, no matter how many times you try to say otherwsie.

People have had the patience to debunk every piece of 'evidence' you've posted, and you continue to trawl the internet for new supporting evidence for your beliefs, each of which gets knocked down in turn -- I guess you intend to win the thread by exhaustion?
posted by empath at 12:50 PM on May 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

addenum to the beard being black thing. Now, in my rattled brain of armchair CI, i just dialed this when i read the black beard data NS put forth for whatever reason.

red and black.

took me longer to spell/type it.
posted by clavdivs at 12:54 PM on May 10, 2011

"OBL is rubbing is hands in glee"

that don't sound right.

Hey, that sounds like great advice!

I learned it by watching you, dad! I learned it by watching you.
(parents who use bin laden, have kids who use bin laden)
posted by cashman at 12:55 PM on May 10, 2011

We had a FPP about Pipelineistan or TAPI a couple of years back. Pepe Escobar has been on about this for a long time. His vision is not from inside America so not much notice is taken.
posted by adamvasco at 12:56 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am unaware of a man who's been dead for years being to able to do that

Nor do I know people who "roll" after they're dead but apparently there is an expression, roll over in his grave. Some people can apparently resurrect, look down from heaven, rot in hell or do other things after death, lol
posted by nickyskye at 12:59 PM on May 10, 2011

This isn't a moon landing. It's an assassination. Doubts are not conspiracies, especially when they are about the US government. And I'm in good company there, for example with WikiLeaks.

All I've said is that I wanted more data about this situation, as have many others around the world. I was asked why I had doubts and I offered my speculation, stating that was all it was.

Please continue your moon landing style festivity.

As for the Koran on hair dye. Apparently it was based on this thought to be different from Jews and Christians: "Hence the monks and ascetics among the Jews and Christians were totally against the dyeing of gray hair of the head and beard." "The Jews and Christians do not dye their hair, so be different from them.” "Change the color of his hair but do not use the black die.”

Black dye was forbidden unless the person was still young or else as an expression of being a warrior. "Some scholars do not permit the use of black dye except on the occasion of Jihad (holy war) when the impression of young soldiers could frighten the enemies."
posted by nickyskye at 1:14 PM on May 10, 2011

We had a FPP about Pipelineistan or TAPI a couple of years back. Pepe Escobar has been on about this for a long time. His vision is not from inside America so not much notice is taken.

Should have worked a kitten in there. No, not in the pipeline

Nor do I know people who "roll" after they're dead but apparently there is an expression...

Honestly, this is where I'd say, without a trace of hostility, critical skills should be put to work. If your belief is Bhutto was telling the truth about Bin Laden being dead for years, while offering not a shred of proof and days later she's speaking of Bin Laden doing something not dead people do, it might be time to pause and say "What?"

Doubts are not conspiracies, especially when they are about the US government.

And yet Bhuttos' statement is unquestionably taken at face value and held onto for years and repeated ad nauseam in this thread. Alrighty then. Doubts are batshitinsane when they fly in the face of logic. From there it's just a short stroll to conspiracy.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:24 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

All I've said is that I wanted more data about this situation, as have many others around the world

Ok, something to chew on.
No, you cannot have the full operational specs. Should is a matter for others to decide. Could is a matter of finding the data.

perhaps it is not a matter of want but a matter of cannnot?
posted by clavdivs at 1:27 PM on May 10, 2011

> Solved my own question just now. The Qu'ran says that dying the beard black is OK in war.

And yet, the comment in which you state this also includes 3 paragraphs about how it seems strange to you and not normal for a Muslim or in keeping with Islamic tradition. If you've just found the answer to your question, then why is the uninformed speculation still there in your comment? Why didn't you use the delete key to get rid of what you had already typed instead of filling up the thread with more noise which you knew to be irrelevant?

People are not criticizing you for expressing doubts about this or that. The problem is that you type up every random thought that comes into your head and link to every random thing that you read without pausing to stop and think about it, and you're cluttering up the thread every time you do this. There is no reason to post 3 paragraphs of speculation about why OBL's black beard is suspicious and then use the 4th paragraph to explain why it's not suspicious after all. When you do that, you're posting a comment that is 75% junk, and just confuses everyone else who's reading.

Why are you doing this? Why are you posting material that is rendered obsolete by something else farther down in the same comment? Are your backspace and delete keys broken or something?
posted by anigbrowl at 1:29 PM on May 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

To respond to everything that has been said since I stepped away from the thread is pretty much impossible, and I'm not even sure it's desirable. Some things do merit comment, though, I think.

I am Pakistani AND American, and have the misfortune of not living in either of my homelands at the moment. I think it's often not clear enough when I am posting here that I do regard myself as an American, as well as a Pakistani. It's become a lifelong habit to default to the position of 'Other.' So in conversation with a majority American group, I seem to automatically become more Pakistani. But I am quite sincere when I call myself a Pak-Ameri-stani-can. It's a difficult identity to have in times like these.

Take the term 'conspiracy theorist', for example. As an American, being a conspiracy theorist makes you somewhat loony, for the most part. As a Pakistani, NOT being a conspiracy theorist makes you an ostrich, for the most part. So I must simultaneously be a conspiracy theorist and not be a conspiracy theorist. Which makes me a loony ostrich, I suppose.

Take how one views the American government, for another example. As an American, I still have a whole lot of trust in the government, even though it's been shaken by a variety of revelations over the course of my adult life. As a Pakistani, I would be criminally stupid to trust any government, whether it is America's or Pakistan's. The Pakistani government has never, to my knowledge, kept faith with the Pakistani people. And the American government has used Pakistan, over and over and over again. That the Pakistani government has also used the American government is an added wrinkle of course, and one that the American in me resents. So how to parse that wjen one is both Pakistani AND American?

I don't get why people would doubt that Osama bin Laden died last week in Abbottabad. The US government and the Pakistani government making something up together? This I can buy as a possibility. It wouldn't be the first time. But why would AlQaeda also buy into the story of both of these establishments? After all, the Pakistani and US governments are equally regarded as enemies by AlQaeda. Also, the media is not one amorphous lump. Al Jazeera has a different agenda than Fox News, for example. Neither of them line up neatly with CNN or BBC. Yet they all agree that he died in Abbottabad last week. Then you have Osama bin Laden's widow apparently also saying that he died last week.

So while I know that there are a lot of people in Pakistan, and some here, who still are not sure whether he died on the 1st/2nd of May this year, I don't understand it.

Now the question of the manner of his death is another one entirely. The discrepancies in the accounts have been significant over time. I don't have much hope of all of them, or perhaps even many of them, being explained away. Here there is no problem being American and Pakistani, because neither seriously expects intelligence agencies and military bodies and governments to tell the whole truth about anything.

The question of how the US should proceed in Pakistan and Afghanistan is one that I just don't really want to engage with. Since it's not something about which my opinion makes any material difference, I don't really see the point in subjecting myself to that emotional turmoil.

More in a few minutes.
posted by bardophile at 1:38 PM on May 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

nickyskye: The link you've posted says nothing about the Quran. It does talk about reported sayings of the Prophet. There is a significant difference between Quran and Hadith.
posted by bardophile at 1:42 PM on May 10, 2011

nickyskye: " As for the Koran on hair dye. Apparently it was based on this thought to be different from Jews and Christians: "Hence the monks and ascetics among the Jews and Christians were totally against the dyeing of gray hair of the head and beard." "The Jews and Christians do not dye their hair, so be different from them.” "Change the color of his hair but do not use the black die.”"

This has to be one of the strangest derails I've ever seen.

Don't emulate Jewish ascetics and "monks?"

In case anyone gets the wrong impression, there's no Jewish injunction against women dyeing their hair. The only modern-day Jewish authorities that I'm aware of who say that men shouldn't dye their hair are some Orthodox Haredi rabbis. Why? There's apparently a passage in Deuteronomy which says (I'm paraphrasing) that men should not wear women's clothing or adornments. According to those ultra-Orthodox rabbis, hair color is a woman's adornment.
posted by zarq at 1:43 PM on May 10, 2011

anigbrowl, Please, don't tell me how to think, what to write in my comments.

Here is what I said.

Before I found out about the Qu'ranic reason that the black beard is okay, something that is not generally known, my comments were in response to things other people said. I clarified why and based on what I was curious about the beard, expressed thanks for an article. Then responded to somebody who said it didn't matter if OBL were Muslim, about him being called vain as a possibility for the beard, which is what mainstream media gave as a reason it was dyed black.
posted by nickyskye at 1:44 PM on May 10, 2011

Oh, and nicky... just to also be clear, I'm complaining about the content of the link. Not you for linking to it.
posted by zarq at 1:48 PM on May 10, 2011

I'm going to say this one more time, and then stop. There doesn't appear to be any Quranic comment on whether it is permissible to dye one's beard. All the links I have found, and the one linked to in this thread, are to Ahadith, or sayings of the Prophet. Please stop calling it Quranic, unless you have a specific reason for thinking this is in the Quran. And if there is a specific reason, please share it.

zarq: That's interesting. There is a similar view in Islam about men wearing silk and gold or silver. That these are women's adornments, and not to be used by men.
posted by bardophile at 1:48 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

But why would AlQaeda also buy into the story of both of these establishments?

It would help them if Bin Laden wasn't dead but the world thought he was. He could stop hiding in caves, hang out with the wife OH WAIT.

Could you imagine if Bin Laden popped up alive a year from now? The world would go nuts. The GOP would eat Obama alive, cheered on by much of American.

I know what Newt Gingrich wants for Christmas.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:56 PM on May 10, 2011

There is a significant difference between Quran and Hadith.

Thanks for that interesting clarification bardophile. :)

/derail
Just googled that and found out something, that the words of Allah are considered to be the Koran and the words of the Prophet Mohammad are called hadith. Is that a correct understanding? In Christianity the Bible refers to the word of God and the Prophet, Jesus.

I didn't know there was a distinction in the Muslim tradition between God's word and Mohammad's word and mistakenly assumed it was all considered the Koran. But then Mohammad was not considered the son of God, as Jesus was, so I suppose that's why the Prophet's word is not considered "the word of God" in the Islamic tradition.
posted by nickyskye at 1:59 PM on May 10, 2011

RAI news: Interesting low tech passing of info by Obama and General Wilson. The exchange happened a few hours after the President gave the order to kill Osama Bin Laden. While shaking hands with the General Wilson, President Obama passed him a small piece of paper while shaking hands and received another one in exchange.

Glad of this news. Yay information being more transparent about this. CBS: Senators will have access to bin Laden photos. Three Republican senators, including vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Saxby Chambliss, initially claimed to have seen the photos before acknowledging they were likely duped by photoshopped fakes.
posted by nickyskye at 2:14 PM on May 10, 2011

anigbrowl, Please, don't tell me how to think, what to write in my comments.

You can write what you like, and I can call it repetitive, illogical, and largely irrelevant crap. You have managed to take a complex and wide-ranging discussion about a historic event and turn it into an exegesis of your ill-informed and delusional worldview, while repeatedly showing a complete disregard for facts, logic, or your your fellow participants. you are not here to learn, but to trumpet your ignorance and drown out more informed discussion.

Here is what I said.

...and a link to...the same comment I had linked to, as if I had somehow misquoted you or mischaracterized what you said. Yet another example of your taste for semantic redundancy. I was a fool to waste a single minute of my time reading your idiotic copypasta.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:18 PM on May 10, 2011

anigbrowl why don't you take this crap to Meta, so we can read things of interest like that which bardophile has to say rather than your spittle.
posted by adamvasco at 2:23 PM on May 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

The meta needs more filtering. Linkdumps of dubious quality, let alone truthfulness, are not useful.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:25 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

A proper food fight would resolve all of this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:35 PM on May 10, 2011

Here you go, Brandon.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:41 PM on May 10, 2011

Now I want to talk a bit about Benazir Bhutto. Why, you ask? Well, for one, because she claimed in 2007 that Osama bin Laden was already dead. But more importantly, because she is an interesting example of how poorly understood Pakistan is (or at least was, in her lifetime), in 'the West.'

Remember that I am also American. So my parents weren't in Pakistan when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (Benazir's father) became the first civilian martial law administrator of Pakistan. Nor were they there when the same Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto refused to accept that the Awami League, from East Pakistan, had won the election, this refusal eventually culminating in the formation of Bangladesh, a time in Pakistani history that most Pakistanis still seem unable to really talk about. They missed the nationalization of all profitable private industries, and the nationalization of all the schools. My parents were also in the US when Zia ul Haq, who Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto promoted ahead of several other officers, turned on the man who made him Chief of Army Staff, and eventually hanged him. When we moved back to Pakistan, Zia was firmly in power (aided by our good friend Uncle Sam), Bhutto's family was in exile, and I was too young to really understand what any of this meant.

When Zia-ul-Haq's plane got blown up in 1987, however, I was beginning to get interested in politics. There were a lot of very happy people in Pakistan when his death opened the way for elections. And Bhutto's daughter was a beacon of hope to a lot of adolescent girls, for reasons that I hope are obvious. The general elections of 1988 saw an awful lot of political heavyweights voted off of the scene. It was a very hopeful time.

And then the Pakistan People's Party (Bhutto's party), formed its coalition government, with Benazir as the Prime Minister. And gradually, it became obvious that it was business as usual. She surrounded herself with her father's old cronies, and every one of them was busy raking in cash. (That's hyperbole. I'm sure there were SOME exceptions.) She dismantled one of the few decent programs that the puppet parliament had managed to establish, the Nai Roshni (New Light) schools (If I remember correctly, it was kind of a work-study thing). Not only was the program disbanded, the school buildings were torn down ("We're going to build better ones."), never to be replaced. In her term, Ms Bhutto never presented any meaningful legislation proposals to parliament, so naturally, there was no question of meaningful legislation being passed. She claimed that her hands were tied, but that doesn't explain the dismantling of programs like the Nai Roshni schools. Kids were going to school who had never previously had that opportunity. And on her watch, it was slashed, to be replaced with NOTHING.

Her husband was known throughout the country as Mr 10%. I can't recall whether this is a story from her first term as prime minister or her second, but this is one my mother-in-law has told me many times. My father-in-law was a consultant engineer, helping industrial investors figure out what manufacturing or chemical processing ventures might be worthwhile. One of his clients died rather suddenly of a heart attack. What induced this heart attack?

Well, the industrialist wanted to set up a factory of some sort (textile, if I remember correctly). To do this, there were various government permissions that had to be obtained. When he got to the final stage of the approval process, he was told that he needed to pay Rs 5 million to Ms Bhutto before she would sign off. He was a businessman, and even though it was a huge sum, treated it as the cost of doing business. So he somehow gathered the funds, and brought the cash to Ms Bhutto's office. At Ms Bhutto's office, he met Mr Zardari in the outer office. The briefcase was handed over, and the industrialist came away, expecting that the approval process was now done. When he went back the next day (or perhaps he sent someone for the documents, I'm not clear on this part), he was told by Ms Bhutto that he needed to pay up before the papers could be signed. He explained that he had given the cash to Mr Zardari. She told him that whatever he had paid Zardari was irrelevant; he needed to pay her Rs5million in cash.

Now the details may be a little off. But the industrialist really did die of a heart attack, either on the spot, or within a day or so. The lady's personal corruption was certainly not much less than her husband's. (What a marriage, eh?)

My dislike for Benazir is the intense dislike that only comes from total disillusionment.

In 2007, she had just returned from exile. She redeemed herself a little in my eyes at that time, when she had the guts to go campaigning in the NWFP, while all Musharraf's handpicked men were hiding behind double barricades. And she paid for her courage with her life. But my overwhelming thought was "Damn, they turned her into a martyr, and now we'll have to put up with another generation of Bhuttos looting the country."

It's not clear to me how she would or would not have known whether Osama bin Laden was alive in 2007. The state apparatus was certainly not helping her at that point. And of course it would have been in her interest to lie on the subject. It allowed her to be more critical of Musharraf and his crackdown on militants. (That this crackdown was also used as a means of crushing political dissent is about par for the course with military dictators).
posted by bardophile at 2:46 PM on May 10, 2011 [13 favorites]

Two jokes going around Pakistan these days:

The first is kind of cynical.

Paki#1: We have absolute proof that the Pakistani military did not know where Osama was.
Paki#2: Really? What proof is that?
Paki#1: What Pakistani general would give up a 27million dollar reward?

The second brings us back to cricket, and I'm afraid will only be understood by someone who has followed the Pakistani cricket team's fortunes in the recent past.

"Of course Pakistan was trying to catch Osama bin Laden. It's just that Kamran Akmal was heading the operation."
posted by bardophile at 2:49 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

RAI news: Interesting low tech passing of info by Obama and General Wilson.

Further down in the 'more info' ...

"UPDATE: Some are claiming the President & General exchanged "challenge coins," a common tradition in the U.S. Army."
posted by ericb at 2:51 PM on May 10, 2011

nickyskye: Per my earlier comment
As I'm sure many posters here are aware, Islamic law uses Quran (God's Word), Hadith (the Prophet Mohammed's reported words), and Sunnah (the reported practice of the Prophet Mohammed) as its sources. Of these, only the Quran is regarded as infallible. There is much debate over the authenticity of various reports of the Prophet's words and deeds.

So yes, you now understand the difference correctly. And yes, precisely because Mohammad was a man, any Muslim not recognizing the difference is committing shirk(holding up equals to God), which is perhaps the only unforgivable sin in Islam.
posted by bardophile at 3:00 PM on May 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Horselover Phattie: Some Muslims say that, not all.
posted by bardophile at 3:06 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

All that matters in the context of this discussion, though, is that it's worth keeping in mind there are these three categories of source - Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah - and when we're talking about what Islam requires, it's worth being clear about which kind of source we're quoting from. That's all. And that's a useful clarification for many of us who don't have any background in this - so thanks for bringing it up.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:13 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

nickyskye: “I didn't know there was a distinction in the Muslim tradition between God's word and Mohammad's word and mistakenly assumed it was all considered the Koran. But then Mohammad was not considered the son of God, as Jesus was, so I suppose that's why the Prophet's word is not considered "the word of God" in the Islamic tradition.”

Yeah, that's an interesting and sort of essential distinction in Islam. Each surah (or chapter) of the Koran is specifically a revelation from God spoken by Muhammad; and this is all the Koran is comprised of. Whereas there are a number of contemporary biographies wherein followers recorded other sayings and doings of Muhammad; these comprise the Hadith. This makes sense, considering the fact that the word "koran" actually means "recitation;" each surah was recited aloud by Muhammad and written down as a revelation at some point in his life.

The nature of the revelations in the Koran is important to their character. The Koran contains two types of surah: those that were revealed at Medina (when the Prophet was living there in exile with his followers) and those that were revealed at Mecca (after the Prophet and his followers had captured the holy city.) They are not, however, written down in chonological order of their recitation by Muhammad. Instead, they were accompanied with a traditional instruction as to their intended order: they were to be written down from longest to shortest. So they are in the Koran, where the longest surah, Al Bakara, is the second after Al Fatiha (an essential statement of the Islamic faith), and the shortest, Al Nas, is the last. The tradition here is that the fact that the Koran often seems to have thematic structure from surah to surah is evidence that it is divine in origin; for Muhammad was illiterate and recited these chapters in a different order than they appear in the book – and yet the book holds together as a whole.

Of course, I'm not a Muslim myself, so I can't claim absolute authority; I'm just a guy who finds it interesting and has poked around a bit.

Horselover Phattie: “There are certain hadith called Hadith Qudsi that are indeed considered to also be the word of God.”

bardophile: “Horselover Phattie: Some Muslims say that, not all.”

Well, I get the feeling almost all Muslims believe in certain Hadith Qudsi, but my impression is that the Sunnis on the whole seem a lot more reliant on the Hadith, and emphasize more their importance.
posted by koeselitz at 3:14 PM on May 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

It's a reliable mainstream opinion and has been one for over a thousand years.

Yes, mainstream, but hardly uncontested, for those same thousand-odd years. But LobsterMitten is right, a theological disagreement about the divinity or lack thereof of the Hadith Qudsi is really a derail. :)
posted by bardophile at 3:15 PM on May 10, 2011

Way cool education about the Koran, koeselitz, thanks.

And very interesting thoughts about Benazir, bardophile. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about her.

In my opinion the election of Benazir had something of the dynastic thing about it, like when Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was then elected. Both the parent Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India and their children, who became Prime Ministers, were assassinated.

Like you, I also had hope for Benazir and was very disappointed, even though I generally don't put much hope in any politician, in any country, sometimes I can't help it.

Benazir came into power in 1988, 9 years after the Russians took over Afghanistan in 1979 and the CIA was doing the undermining the Russian army with the heroin business thing in both Afghanistan and the Pakistan border. Pakistan was a huge mess by then. The corruption went from routine to massively corrosive. Could anybody have done much with the rotten infrastructure there at that time?

When I lived in New Delhi between 1981 and the end of 1985 it was flooded with Afghan refugees as well as those from the Iran-Iraq war (1980 to August 1988), many, like the Afghans, ended up in Pakistani refugee camps.

The deaths of Ali Bhutto, Zia and Benazir are considered by many to all have been assassinations, certainly both Bhuttos were assassinations, and possibly connected with the CIA. It's hard to know what's what in Pakistan. Benazir did seem to know the complexities of Pakistan better than anybody I've heard speak about them.

A NYC Pakistani cab driver, always an endless source of interesting theories, told me his opinion about Benazir's father, supposedly why he was assassinated. He thought it was because when King Faisal proposed that the Arab nations get together and control their oil together, that OPEC be formed, Ali Bhutto lent active support to Arab causes, bonding with with King Faisal, Gadaffi, Arafat and Hafiz-Al-Assad. His, the cab driver's, idea was that the USA was livid about that, supported Zia, Ali Bhutto's general, in the assassination, then put Zia up as a US puppet until Zia was, allegedly, assassinated.

Lots of tangled webs of betrayal in that part of the world over many decades.
posted by nickyskye at 4:09 PM on May 10, 2011

I know what Newt Gingrich wants for Christmas.

A Bud Krogh Hummel?
posted by clavdivs at 4:11 PM on May 10, 2011

An obscure Bud Krogh reference? What *doesn't* this thread have?
posted by found missing at 4:26 PM on May 10, 2011

The hell with your cab driver, wiki s better.

"Some have suspected the anti-Zia group al-Zulfikar, led by Murtaza Bhutto, brother of Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani politician who would ultimately gain most from Zia's departure. General Zia's son Ijaz-ul-Haq told Barbara Crossette a year after the crash that he was "101 percent sure" that Murtaza was involved. Benazir Bhutto suggested that the fatal crash might well have been an "act of God" She was also accused of having rejoiced at Zia's death, because Zia had ordered her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto hanged."

care to explain the confusion in this statement.
posted by clavdivs at 4:31 PM on May 10, 2011

dude, that should be your tag line
posted by found missing at 4:36 PM on May 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Pakistanis always have a store of conspiracy theories. The thing is, you never can tell which of them is the right one. :)

ZA Bhutto was executed. For crimes that there is no doubt that he committed. i.e. ordering the murder of a political opponent. Of course, other politicians have gotten away with the same crime. He was arrested, tried, and executed for political reasons. I guess I wouldn't call that an assassination. Benazir and Zia were, of course, assassinated. Benazir was shot, and Zia's plane was blown up. There really isn't any debate about whether they were assassinated. The debate enters when you start to wonder whether there was CIA involvement in any of the deaths. Now, most Pakistanis will tell you that pretty much everything that goes wrong is because of "the foreign hand," either Indian, or American (depending on what year it is, and what the particular Pakistani's political leanings are.)

It's certainly possible that the US was involved in any or all three deaths. But it's also possible that they weren't. ZA Bhutto made a lot of very powerful enemies by refusing to acknowledge the Bengali vote, by nationalizing privately owned factories, and by obvious and selective patronage of some, and equally obvious and selective targeting of others. So there were plenty of people who wanted him dead.

Zia ul Haq had similarly made a lot of enemies. He was an extremely personally devout, but also extremely repressive dictator. I always wondered how he squared away violating his solemn oath to uphold the constitution with his extreme religiosity. There was dancing in the streets when he died, even though the state was officially in mourning.

Benazir may well have been targeted by the Taliban. Or even her own husband, who has done little to seek justice in the matter. The theories abound.

My point is that it's pretty much impossible to determine the truth in these matters, at least for now, but that each of them had enough home-grown enemies that foreign interference wasn't necessarily the catalyst in any of them. IF the US government was involved, I suppose the FOIA will eventually lead to some disclosures.

And of course Benazir was elected because she was a Bhutto. That's why Bilawal will get elected, too. The Gandhis go back further of course, Indira Gandhi being Nehru's daughter. But you have similar dynasties in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, too. I've always found it interesting, that in this quite conservative part of the world, class and family are so much more powerful forces that they have overcome the gender barrier to being the head of state, in all four countries. Daughters and widows have been heads of state in South Asia for many decades now.

For me, the issue is not so much whether either of the Bhuttos, or Zia, or Nawaz Sharif could have prevented the country from becoming the mess it is. My anger is over the fact that each of them actively participated in making the mess worse, rather than even attempting to improve things.
posted by bardophile at 4:39 PM on May 10, 2011 [8 favorites]

My anger is over the fact that each of them actively participated in making the mess worse, rather than even attempting to improve things.

Well said. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Some think Zia's plane crashed, not blown up, that it was not a sure thing he was assassinated. Shortly after takeoff, the control tower lost contact with the aircraft. Witnesses cited in Pakistan's official investigation said that the C-130 began to pitch "in an up-and-down motion" while flying low shortly after take-off before going into a "near-vertical dive", exploding on impact, killing all on board.

Yeah I guess Zia's execution of Bhutto was not technically an assassination but maybe it was a summary execution. Whatever.

What I'm curious about are your thoughts and opinions of the next five or ten years in Pakistan? Has Mr. 10%, Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan and widower of Benazir been doing anything worthy at all in your opinion? Or is the mess just continuing? He flattered Sarah Palin and offered her a hug, which earned him a fatwa. I think he deserves it for that, lol.

Would you be so kind to offer your opinion on any of my speculations? I'd appreciate it and value your thoughts.

The official recognition of the death of OBL would seem to mean an end to something, other than merely OBL's life, of course. Perhaps the US government being able to blame Pakistan for OBL not dying sooner will be a reason to increase the US military forces on the Pakistani-Afghani border? Maybe this will help end the reign of the extremists in Pakistan's northern borders? Maybe the Pakistani government could play victim to US oppressors, while actually glad the US military is taking over suppressing the extremists?

Now that TAPI Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India was expected to be signed April 30 (not sure if has been signed yet or delayed), this might be a source of increasing peace between those countries and possible prosperity?
posted by nickyskye at 6:00 PM on May 10, 2011

It's certainly possible that the US was involved in any or all three deaths.

With an Ambassador and U.S. Army general aboard?
Oh, and your pipeline, a 250$ bomb will take care of that.

dude, that should be your tag line

could I have a beer, please?
posted by clavdivs at 6:30 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

claudius: Well, I think the presence of the ambassador and the general make it less likely that the US govt was involved. But most Pakistanis don't give the American government any credit at all for honour or trustworthiness. So the argument they make is that Zia was getting too independent minded, and the ambassador and general were collateral damage (not that the term 'collateral damage' was in wide currency in 1987). To me that's unlikely, but not impossible.
posted by bardophile at 6:56 PM on May 10, 2011

nicky: I'm not speculating about the next five or ten years in Pakistan. I don't see a way forward right now that would even begin to show results in that timeframe, and I don't particularly care to contemplate the alternative to a path to improvement.

As far as I can tell, Zardari has done nothing to make things better. At the time when the country was begging for flood relief funds from all around the world, he was getting government funds assigned to a multi-million dollar memorial to Benazir, for which the land was, surprise, to be bought from him. That said, my contempt for him makes it pretty hard for me to be an objective judge of whether he's done anything productive. I haven't heard anyone making any claims about any positive steps, either, though.

As to the rest, I have spent a sleepless night, and will get back to you. :)
posted by bardophile at 7:07 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

nickyskye, what about bin Laden's youngest ~~widow~~ ~~wife~~ widow, Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah? The one who wasn't living with him the last 6 years & wasn't shot in the leg when bin Laden wasn't killed. What's her motive for playing along with this absurdly huge conspiracy? Do you think she really was shot just to add a flavor of authenticity to the story & she's playing out her part protecting the people who shot her? And bin Laden's kids who'll have to pretend to everybody that Daddy was really living there all along; I imagine keeping that story straight will be a heavy burden on their young minds. How long do you give them before they crack under the pressure & tell the world what really happened?

At some point the complexity of this scheme becomes too great & it all comes crashing down under its own weight as more & more people are pulled into it, bought off or threatened into compliance. There's just too many moving parts for the machine to keep running perpetually without breaking. And too much energy required to fix it without being noticed when it does break down.
posted by scalefree at 7:18 PM on May 10, 2011

Scalefree, maybe they're made up too! It's not like they're going to be on Oprah anytime soon. They might as well not exist.
posted by thirteenkiller at 7:54 PM on May 10, 2011

scalefree, No idea. I have not assumed Safia (OBL's daughter) was playing at anything.

If you wish, I can give you reasons for my doubts about this situation.
posted by nickyskye at 10:18 PM on May 10, 2011

Geronimo and the Myth of the Bloodthirsty Savage

On March 23, 2003, just three days after the start of the Iraq War, a young Hopi woman who was a member of the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company was traveling through the desert when her convoy was ambushed. She successfully drove through heavy enemy fire until an RPG explosion caused her Humvee to crash. Several soldiers were killed. She suffered severe injuries as a result of the accident, and was taken prisoner along with two other female soldiers. Lori Piestewa, a single mother of two children, died of her wounds soon after capture.

Lori is one of thousands of American Indians who have fought, bled, and died for this country. Surely her memory, as well as the memory of countless other American Indian soldiers who suffered injury, disability, disease and death, warrants some modicum of respect from those they died to protect.

President Obama and member of Congress, please don’t allow the original inhabitants of this land who have sacrificed so much for this country to be relegated to the stereotype of the bloodthirsty savage. It is a lie. Use your apology for the use of Geronimo as a code in association with Osama Bin Laden as an opportunity to open a dialogue about American Indian stereotypes, and to help cure the ignorance that pervades mainstream American society about native people.
posted by Rumple at 11:35 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this going to be one of those things online I looked at and then found out later got turned into a book?
posted by nile_red at 11:35 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

(this thread I mean)
posted by nile_red at 11:42 PM on May 10, 2011

For an indepth look at the Bhutto family I highly recommend Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter's Memoir by Fatima Bhutto, grand-daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. It is a "love letter " to her father Murtaza who was murdered possibly with the connivance and knowledge of her Aunt Benazir.
Fatima argues that Zia al Huq was assassinated. This article argues differently. As usual in such matters Gul is involved (He was then head of ISA).
posted by adamvasco at 11:57 PM on May 10, 2011

Bin Laden family statement

I Omar Ossama Binladin and my brothers the lawful children and heirs of the Ossama Binladin (OBL) have noted wide coverage of the news of the death of our father, but we are not convinced on the available evidence in the absence of dead body, photographs, and video evidence that our natural father is dead. Therefore, with this press statement, we seek such conclusive evidence to believe the stories published in relation to 2 May 2011 operation Geronimo as declared by the President of United States Barrack Hussein Obama in his speech that he authorized the said operation and killing of OBL and later confirmed his death.

If OBL has been killed in that operation as President of United States has claimed then we are just in questioning as per media reports that why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world. If he has been summarily executed then, we question the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated but USA has set a very different example whereby right to have a fair trial, and presumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law has been sacrificed on which western society is built and is standing when a trial of OBL was possible for any wrongdoing as that of Iraqi President Sadam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic'. We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems and crime's adjudication as Justice must be seen to be done.

It is also unworthy of the special forces to shoot unarmed female family members of Binladen killing a female and that of one of his son.

Most importantly, when it is a common knowledge that OBL's family is residing at one place outside KSA, why they were not contacted to receive his dead body. His sudden and un witnessed burial at sea has deprived the family of performing religious rights of a Muslim man.

Finally, now that the operation is concluded we wish the Government of Pakistan to release and hand over all minors of the family and all the family members are reunited at one place and are repatriated to their country of origin, especially female members of the family to avoid further oppression and we seek international support to that effect.

Without agreeing to the ways of OBL as to how he professed, believed and operated, We Omar Ossama Binladin, and my brothers, the lawful children of the Ossama Binladin (OBL) herewith demand an inquiry under UNO to reach to the accuracy of the facts as stated by United States into the fundamental question as to why our father was not arrested and tried but summarily executed without a court of law. We are putting these questions to the United Nations, OIC, President of United States that a necessary evidence is presented to the family in private and or public to make us believe what they claim, and all the remaining family members are repatriated and united after necessary initial investigation.

In making this statement, we want to remind the world that Omar Ossam Binladin, the fourth-born son of our father, always disagreed with our father regarding any violence and always sent messages to our father, that he must change his ways and that no civilians should be attacked under any circumstances. Despite the difficulty of publicly disagreeing with our father, he never hesitated to condemn any violent attacks made by anyone, and expressed sorrow for the victims of any and all attacks. As he condemned our father, we now condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.

Failure to answer these questions will force us to go to International forum for justice such as International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice and UN must take notice of the violation of international law and assist us to have answers for which we are lawful in seeking them. A panel of eminent British and international lawyers is being constituted and a necessary action may be taken if no answers are furnished within 30 days of this statement.

posted by cashman at 4:46 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Failure to answer these questions will force us to go to International forum for justice such as International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice

Good luck with that. The US doesn't accept the jurisdiction of the ICC (which is based on an opt-in model) and only accepts the ICJ's jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis.

A panel of eminent British and international lawyers is being constituted

Perhaps that should have been done first, before issuing laughably ignorant & toothless threats.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:01 AM on May 11, 2011

I'm surprised that you think this is laughable; I'd call it sad. Osama bin Laden's son has more respect for the rule of law than the USA does.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:17 AM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Or Israel, for that matter.

This doesn't change the fact that it's laughable for anybody to threaten taking the US to the ICC or the ICJ when it's common knowledge that the US rejects the ICC's jurisdiction. The ICJ I wasn't certain about but all it took was a 2-sec google.

This makes the threat especially cringeworthy, because the Bin Laden family are reputedly sitting on many millions, and even a suburban solicitor could advise them on big-ticket facts like these before they made idiots of themselves in full view of the entire world.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:24 AM on May 11, 2011

I think this is a public relations statement more than one of legal intent. It's a public statement of grievance. They aren't expecting anything concrete to result from it, but they feel that honour demands that these views be made known. The refusal of the US to subject itself to the ICC and only conditionally to the ICJ is something that the US is widely criticized for in the Muslim world. The Bin Laden clan is drawing attention to that double standard, not asking for legal redress.
posted by bardophile at 5:31 AM on May 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

This makes the threat especially cringeworthy

It's not that it will get results, it is that it will make the US have to say "no, fuck you international community, we do whatever we want and you can stuff your international law".

When Lyndon Johnson ran for Congress, legend says, he wanted to spread the rumor that his opponent was a pig-fucker. Johnson's campaign manager said, "Lyndon, you know he doesn't do that!" Johnson replied, "I know. I just want to make him deny it."
posted by Meatbomb at 5:34 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

It would actually be fun to see the US sign up for the ICC, even if just for this case.

Killing OBL cannot count as genocide or a crime against humanity (which has a specific meaning which wouldn't apply to these circumstances) so the only action remaining would be to try the killing as a war crime. This would surely fail at the first hurdle, because in spite of the "war on terror" rhetoric, international humanitarian law basically doesn't apply to anything less than formal state v state conflicts (or internal conflicts, under the 2nd Protocol).

I like the idea of forcing the US to say "stuff your international law" but it would be much more amusing to call the Bin Ladens' bluff, and see them try to convince the ICC to even hear the case. It's not as if the US even has to fight against it - there's simply no case to answer, even if the ICC had jurisdiction.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:59 AM on May 11, 2011

It's not that it will get results, it is that it will make the US have to say "no, fuck you international community, we do whatever we want and you can stuff your international law".

Haven't we already said that, several times?

That someone is defending Bin Laden is kinda sad, particularly in this manner. Hurray publicity stunt.

On preview:
... international humanitarian law basically doesn't apply to anything less than formal state v state conflicts (or internal conflicts, under the 2nd Protocol).

Yah, loopholes!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:01 AM on May 11, 2011

A NYC Pakistani cab driver, always an endless source of interesting theories, told me his opinion about Benazir's father, supposedly why he was assassinated.

Is this the same cab driver Friedman and Brooks get all their hot tips from, I wonder?

I'd call it sad. Osama bin Laden's son has more respect for the rule of law than the USA does.

What a shame his respect for the rule of law didn't extend to keeping Papa from killing thousands; and what a shame Bin Laden wasn't Palestinian, then we could all be spared your crocodile tears, Joe.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:22 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

CNN: Al Qaeda released a statement on jihadist forums confirming the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant messages.

The statement that Al Qaida confirmed OBL's death was released and translated from the Arabic by the SITE intelligence group (Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute) owned by Rita Katz, who apparently worked in the Israeli Defense Forces. If you google the company they don't have an especially good reputation for veracity. According to Source Watch they are on the US government and Blackwater payroll.
posted by nickyskye at 6:29 AM on May 11, 2011

So you're saying that Al Qaeda did NOT confirm Bin Laden's death, is that it?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:42 AM on May 11, 2011

If you google the company they don't have an especially good reputation for veracity.

Did a Google search for '"site intelligence group" translation questions'. Not finding what you say. Are there particular links you wish to share?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:50 AM on May 11, 2011

Whoops, here's the results of the Google search for " "site intelligence group" translation questions."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:53 AM on May 11, 2011

Osama bin Laden's son has more respect for the rule of law than the USA does.

For this second, sure. I guess it's too bad that neither he nor any of the other family members supporting that letter had any contact that Osama bin Laden in the past 10 years, or OBL could've been arrested much more easily.

If you google the company they don't have an especially good reputation for veracity.

via: "SITE’s detractors have also questioned the quality, or, rather, the possible slant, of SITE’s translations—an especially troubling issue given the shortage of alternatives. “An Arabic word can have four or five different meanings in translation,” Michael Scheuer, the former C.I.A. analyst, said. SITE, in his view, always picks the “most warlike translation.”"

Not sure how many ways they could slant "DEAD".
posted by inigo2 at 6:55 AM on May 11, 2011

Inigo2 wrote: I guess it's too bad that neither he nor any of the other family members supporting that letter had any contact that Osama bin Laden in the past 10 years, or OBL could've been arrested much more easily.

The letter claims that they didn't get on with him, and surely if they had kept in contact then the CIA would have found him long ago. In any event, it's not their job to have their father killed, is it?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:33 AM on May 11, 2011

In any event, it's not their job to have their father killed, is it?

But, but, they care so much for the rule of law!
posted by inigo2 at 7:49 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

In any event, it's not their job to have their father killed, is it?

No, just bring him to trial, which they seem very interested in now, after he's been killed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:55 AM on May 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

As the child of a comparatively small time megalomaniac, I'd rather not be kidnapped by the state for shit my father did.
posted by honey-barbara at 8:01 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Although, I suppose I'd dob him in. But knowing you're going to get your father shot in the head would throw up some problems in even the most difficult of father/child relationships, no?
posted by honey-barbara at 8:04 AM on May 11, 2011

nickyskye: " The statement that Al Qaida confirmed OBL's death was released and translated from the Arabic by the SITE intelligence group (Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute) owned by Rita Katz, who apparently worked in the Israeli Defense Forces. If you google the company they don't have an especially good reputation for veracity. According to Source Watch they are on the US government and Blackwater payroll."

I googled. Saw no criticism of their translation methods. Could you please provide a cite which proves their translations have been found to be inaccurate or questionable, and isn't "we should consider them questionable because one of their founders worked for the IDF?"
posted by zarq at 8:13 AM on May 11, 2011

The first confirmation from Al Qaeda came from a much earlier report from the AFP. So, even if you think SITE is somehow making up its confirmation, you still have to deal with yet another AQ source, one connected only with the AFP, confirming that OBL was killed in the recent raid.

Also, if SITE was going to lie about OBL's death, why wouldn't they just lie further and not cite their own involvement, so as to avoid all suspicion? This "doubt" doesn't even make sense within its own narrative.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:35 AM on May 11, 2011

Did I miss where Joe in Australia explained all his previous comments in other threads in support of assassinations?
posted by empath at 9:06 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

"According to SITE Intelligence Group an Al Qaeda group which monitors militant messages has released a statement on jihadist forums confirming the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden."

"The statement's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on websites where the group traditionally puts out its messages."

SITE are the one to have both released the statement and translated it. The supposed message itself has not be confirmed as genuine.

Apart from questioning SITE intelligence's capacity for truth telling, how would Al Qaeda even be in any position to confirm bin Laden's been killed when every single person in the compound who would be in a position to provide such confirmation is either dead, in custody, or a Navy Seal?

OBL himself stated that such statements are, in fact, not how Al Qaeda, that he founded, even operates.
posted by nickyskye at 9:51 AM on May 11, 2011

a much earlier report from the AFP

Tried to find a link to that and couldn't. If you have the link, would appreciate it. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 9:54 AM on May 11, 2011

Tried to find a link to that and couldn't. If you have the link, would appreciate it. Thanks.

I command-Fed for "AFP" in this very thread, and this was the first hit.

every single person in the compound who would be in a position to provide such confirmation is either dead, in custody, or a Navy Seal?

Do you have support for that assertion?
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:59 AM on May 11, 2011

Apart from questioning SITE intelligence's capacity for truth telling

Other than opinions that SITE slants their translations (as I noted above), I haven't found any cites that they just make shit up out of thin air. Have you?
posted by inigo2 at 9:59 AM on May 11, 2011

"The statement's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on websites where the group traditionally puts out its messages."

What are you quoting from? I did a control F in the thread for that phrase and the only match was your comment? If you're quoting something, could you PLEASE cite your source?

Apart from questioning SITE intelligence's capacity for truth telling, how would Al Qaeda even be in any position to confirm bin Laden's been killed when every single person in the compound who would be in a position to provide such confirmation is either dead, in custody, or a Navy Seal?

"Hey Ahmed, have we heard anything from that courier guy? No? Shit, it must be true then."

OBL himself stated that such statements are, in fact, not how Al Qaeda, that he founded, even operates.

Yes, let us believe everything the mass murdering terrorist says about the organization designed to run without a central authority.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:09 AM on May 11, 2011

Another statement from Al Qaeda acknowledging the death of bin Laden.

ABC News | May 11, 2011 -- Al Qaeda Leader Vows Revenge So Fierce That U.S. Will Miss Osama Bin Laden

A leader of the al Qaeda offshoot that U.S. officials have called the greatest threat to the U.S. vowed in a message posted on Islamist websites Wednesday to take revenge against the U.S. for the death of Osama bin Laden, saying that jihad would only intensify and that Americans would come to "wish for the days of Osama."

"Do not dismiss this battle so easily, and give your people false hope that if you kill Osama that it is over," promised Nasir al-Wahishi, a leader of the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). "What is waiting for you is far greater and more dangerous, and you will then count your regrets, wishing for the days of Osama."

Wahishi said the U.S. made a "big mistake" by killing bin Laden. "For those who celebrated the killing of our sheikh," says the statement, "we tell them: We will see if you celebrate what the sons and students of the sheikh will send you." [more]

posted by ericb at 10:09 AM on May 11, 2011

The CIA's Last-Minute Osama bin Laden Drama -- "The arrest of CIA contractor Raymond Davis came close to derailing the mission to get Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Tara McKelvey on the man known as 'American Rambo.'"
posted by ericb at 10:12 AM on May 11, 2011

"For those who celebrated the killing of our sheikh, we tell them: We will see if you celebrate what the sons and students of the sheikh will send you."

And your little dog, too.
posted by Miko at 10:24 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Osama’s Dead, But Congress Wants a Wider War

You Can Take the 9/11 Security State From My Cold, Dead, Top Secret Hands
posted by homunculus at 10:24 AM on May 11, 2011

The Atlantic article: The Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill

every single person in the compound who would be in a position to provide such confirmation is either dead, in custody, or a Navy Seal?

Huh, you think that maybe there was an Al Qaida connected person in the compound who passed on the news?

Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid.

If you put the phrase "The statement's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on websites where the group traditionally puts out its messages." there are many links to check out from around the world.
posted by nickyskye at 10:29 AM on May 11, 2011

every single person in the compound who would be in a position to provide such confirmation is either dead, in custody, or a Navy Seal?

Huh, you think that maybe there was an Al Qaida connected person in the compound who passed on the news?

Do you seriously think that there's no way people in AQ could find out if their contacts (including OBL himself) were around or not? If so, do you have proof for that assertion?

Also, that Atlantic article was completely irrelevant, it was about the details of OBL's death, such as whether or not he was unarmed. It raised zero doubts as to whether or not OBL is dead.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:39 AM on May 11, 2011

BTW, that insane article by Watson contains the assertion that OBL died of Marfan syndrome in July 2001. That's hilarious.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:41 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid.

Actually, this article comes from 9/11-truther Alex Jones's Prison Planet site, a cynosure of conspiracy theorizing.

Are we ready to turn this thread over to the deathers now? We still need about another 1,000 posts to surpass the Sarah Palin longboat.
posted by Doktor Zed at 10:54 AM on May 11, 2011

MetaFilter: it's not a conspiracy theory if I'm the one making it.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:55 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND!
posted by clavdivs at 10:55 AM on May 11, 2011

EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND!

I have found hours of footage contradicting this assertion. We're through the looking glass, people.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:56 AM on May 11, 2011

fish and I control the beet and sneaker trade
posted by clavdivs at 10:56 AM on May 11, 2011

Fascinating sentence from the Raymond Davis link: "Contractors are now so entrenched at the CIA, as one former officer told me, that some have begun to form makeshift unions, and yet despite the extraordinary reliance on the private sector, CIA officers parcel the assignments out in secrecy. “Even the number of contractors is not public information,” says security expert Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists." [emphasis mine]

I would love to hear more about this.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:00 AM on May 11, 2011

oh lordy... It's time to remove this tread from "recent activities".

nickyskye, you are really not winning anyone over with the scatter-shot thing. If anything you have convinced me further of the dangers of too much information and what a poorly set up filter that lets too much trough can do.

Perhaps Youtube will be your friend?
posted by edgeways at 11:04 AM on May 11, 2011

nickyskye: “Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid.”

Look, I am willing to follow your argument pretty far, nickyskye, but I won't follow it so far as to consider Alex Jones as a reliable source. Sorry. Paul Joseph Watson is not credible.
posted by koeselitz at 11:14 AM on May 11, 2011

Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid.

Here's the first loony rationale:

1) Before last Sunday’s raid, every intelligence analyst, geopolitical commentator or head of state worth their salt was on record as stating that Osama Bin Laden was already dead, and that he probably died many years ago, from veteran CIA officer Robert Baer, to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson. In addition, back in 2002 Alex Jones was told directly by two separate high level sources that Bin Laden was already dead and that his death would be announced at the most politically opportune moment. Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under five different Presidents, serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under the Nixon, Ford and Carter, told the Alex Jones Show last week that Bin Laden died of marfan syndrome shortly after he was visited by CIA physicians at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001.

veteran CIA officer Robert Baer
A guy who questioned the accounts of 9/11, then recanted that questioning

former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
That one's already been dealt with upthread in that Bhutto offered not a shred of proof or a single verifiable detail.

... former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson
Who's been quoted as saying "I personally think he is probably not with us anymore but I have no evidence to support that."

...Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik.... told the Alex Jones Show

Dr. Steven R. Piezenik is a little nutty.

The Alex Jones Show is the definition of batshitinsane crazy.

When your sources are people who say 9/11 was an inside job or that they think Bin Laden is dead but have no proof or birthers, then you don't have a fucking leg to stand on.

Please stop spamming this thread with such bullshit. You're starting from what you already think and then just finding shit that agrees with what you believe, and then proceed to ignore common sense and/or facts. For the love of God, please stop, it's intensely annoying and dishonest.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:16 AM on May 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

From the link:

"In addition, back in 2002 Alex Jones was told directly by two separate high level sources that Bin Laden was already dead and that his death would be announced at the most politically opportune moment."

If two unnamed "high level sources" told Alex Jones back in '02 that Bin Laden was already dead that settles it for me!

Of course, Paul Joseph Watson believes that "everything about the Bin Laden myth is fake" so I'm not sure why it matters much if he's dead or alive in that case. (My favorite piece, from that last linked blog is "My Favorite Pleaidian." Money quote: "She said that the Star Wars bar scene, where many strange beings gathered to mingle, was pretty much what it was like on her Father’s ship.")
posted by octobersurprise at 11:16 AM on May 11, 2011

This is why the deather stuff is annoying. It takes away from thought-out criticisms. It takes away from when there are actual questions about the motivations of world leaders and such, because then it lumps everything together, from "check out the double-dealing in the so-called 'reconstruction' in Iraq" to "OBL died in July 2001, the world just pretended he was alive for a few years after that, and then everyone agreed to pretend that he died some years after that."
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:18 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

New life for an old rumor: Was bin Laden 'Marfanoid'? But Dr. Hal Dietz, a geneticist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who first mapped Marfan mutations, said the theory isn’t any more valid now than it was then.

True, bin Laden had some physical characteristics linked to Marfan syndrome, which affects about 1 in 5,000 people.

“He was quite tall and he had a long, narrow face,” Dietz said.

But bin Laden didn’t have deep-set, downward-slanting eyes of those with Marfan syndrome. He had no skeletal deformities and no evidence of heart problems that might have resulted in an aortic tear or rupture. There seems to have been no sign of the dominant genetic disorder in his children, Dietz said.

In fact, Dietz – who is so familiar with the signs he often spots people with Marfan in public places like restaurants and theme parks – says he wouldn’t have flagged bin Laden as a potential patient at all.

“I think it’s pure speculation with minimal basis in fact,” Dietz said.

With bin Laden, however, it'll likely take more than mere facts to put this rumor -- or any other -- to rest.

posted by zarq at 11:24 AM on May 11, 2011

"In addition, back in 2002 Alex Jones was told directly by two separate high level sources that Bin Laden was already dead and that his death would be announced at the most politically opportune moment."

It sure was thoughtful of George W. Bush to pass a propaganda coup like that off to his successor. Maybe that's what was in that letter he left in the Oval Office for Obama: "P.S. Osama bin Laden's body is in a freezer in the basement. I didn't need it, but feel free to thaw it out if your poll numbers ever start slipping."
posted by EarBucket at 11:25 AM on May 11, 2011 [7 favorites]

“I think it’s pure speculation with minimal basis in fact,” Dietz said.

DIETZ THUNDERS: "MARFAN THEORY BASED IN FACT"
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:28 AM on May 11, 2011

The Al Qaeda statement acknowledging Bin Laden's death, translated from Arabic by Reuters.

Or so they SAY. I hear Pakistani cab drivers don't consider them a credible source.*

*Hamburger.
posted by misha at 11:31 AM on May 11, 2011

The Maquis are "not scheduled to begin raiding for several hundred years."
posted by zarq at 11:59 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well that explains this, then.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 12:24 PM on May 11, 2011

Unless I'm reposting stuff from the front page. CRAP
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 12:30 PM on May 11, 2011

How to Identify and Avoid Spreading Misinformation, Myths, and Urban Legends on the Internet
posted by grubi at 12:32 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

AP Sources: US seized Bin Laden handwritten journal

U.S. officials say that Osama bin Laden kept a hand-written journal filled with planning ideas and details of operations. The journal was seized in the dramatic US raid.

Bin Laden has long been known to record his thoughts and had been thought to keep a diary. Bin Laden’s son, in a memoir, has described his father as recording his thoughts and plans when the family lived in Sudan and Afghanistan.

No word whether or not they seized his glitter pens.
posted by cashman at 12:43 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

"I'm not claiming these people weren't 100% human at one time, what I am saying is that they invited the control and bodily takeover of Reptilians through blood drinking and rituals and now can be bodily overtaken by them or possessed against or within their own will."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:58 PM on May 11, 2011

Don't believe that? There's video PROOF people!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:07 PM on May 11, 2011

Brandon Blatcher: ""I'm not claiming these people weren't 100% human at one time, what I am saying is that they invited the control and bodily takeover of Reptilians through blood drinking and rituals and now can be bodily overtaken by them or possessed against or within their own will.""

!
posted by zarq at 1:12 PM on May 11, 2011

I see no reason to bring my mother into this, zarq.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:20 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

:)
posted by zarq at 1:21 PM on May 11, 2011

Martin Bashir To Tom Tancredo: Would You Rather Obama Have Died Than Bin Laden? (video).
posted by ericb at 2:09 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

nickyskye, are you seriously positing Paul Joseph Watson as a credible source of information, someone to be relied on?
posted by scalefree at 2:38 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I'm not claiming these people weren't 100% human at one time, what I am saying is that they invited the control and bodily takeover of Republicans through blood drinking and rituals and now can be bodily overtaken by them or possessed against or within their own will."
...
is this supposed to be news?
posted by philip-random at 2:48 PM on May 11, 2011

Protocols of the elders of Chester A. Arthur.
posted by clavdivs at 3:40 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

From Ericb's link: After the shootings in Lahore, Davis, 36, contacted his colleagues for help; they raced to the intersection and accidentally killed someone else, then sped away, as a black mask, bullets, and a piece of cloth with an American flag fell out of their Land Cruiser ...

Life imitates Wacky Races.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:58 PM on May 11, 2011

I hear ya.
posted by clavdivs at 4:58 PM on May 11, 2011

US officials: Pakistan hasn't shared detailed bin Laden logs left behind.
posted by ericb at 5:16 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

"The portrait emerging from the documents shows bin Laden was more involved in daily operations than U.S. national- security leaders had suspected."

hmmm, seems all the Pratt blog hand-wringing about OBL as some sort of trailer park jihadi with no power are wrong.

they usually are.
posted by clavdivs at 8:06 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I just watched this again to make sure I didn't mishear, but Sen. James Inhofe was just on Anderson Cooper's CNN show and claimed to have seen 15 photos of OBL taken after the raid and said clearly that the first 3 were taken while OBL was still alive. It was not clear whether this was before or after he was shot. He also described one of the bullets as having gone in through the ear and out through the opposite eye (or vice versa) so there were brains 'hanging out'.

He said the final photos were taken on the ship before the burial at sea and showed OBL cleaned up, pale, in some kind of undergarment, and showed his identity more clearly.
posted by unSane at 8:27 PM on May 11, 2011

Ericb: Were these giant rainforest logs, massive bulks of teak and mahogany that could not be taken on a helicopter? Because I'm having some difficulty imagining what other sort of logs they could be "forced to leave behind".

Ah, here's a clarification:

It was not clear how much material was left behind when the Seals evacuated the compound in Abbottabad on May 1, but senior U.S. military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it could have been a substantial amount.

What that reporter meant was "The US has since heard that its assassins who claimed to have scoured the compound actually left a lot of stuff behind. Please can we have it?"
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:46 PM on May 11, 2011

Yeah, they must have been mahogany logs.

inigo2 asked: I haven't found any cites that they just make shit up out of thin air. Have you?

As a response I posted Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid, which talks about SITE Intelligence making stuff up.

You asked, I linked. I have no faith in Paul Joseph Watson, nor do I know anything about him, am not a fan of Prison Planet.

There has been no link to anybody who released the Al Qaida confirmation before SITE Intelligence, that I know about. If you have a link I'd like to see it because I couldn't find anything about it. The one that was offered didn't work.

Curious about SITE Intelligence as a source, I researched them a little. The owner Rita Katz worked in the Israeli Defense Force, her father was executed as an Israeli spy. She's on the payroll of evil Blackwater and that is automatically suspect, imo, as not having an iota of ethics. Since SITE Intelligence released the Al Qaida confirmation, not offering the name of the website where they found it, the fact it has not been corroborated by any other news source, isn't encouraging in terms of their credibility. It's not just that SITE Intelligence only translated the statement, it's that they seem to be the only source who found it.

If there was a prior to SITE release of the confirmation and a website named where it was found, I'd appreciate knowing that.

In terms of the Al Qida confirmation itself, it seems unlikely that Al Qaida would agree with the US government about anything, including the death of their founder, offering "a confirmation" of the assassination of their leader, especially after the US government tried to denigrate OBL by saying he'd used a woman/wife as a shield.

In an Effort to "Validate the Death" of bin Laden, Inhofe Becomes First Senator To See Photos

> And he calls the rationale for the decision not to release photographs of bin Laden’s corpse “garbage.”

a member of the Armed Services Committee, argued that the Obama administration should release the photos to the public

Michael Moore's thoughts: Unfortunately, to put bin Laden on trial would have been problematic because he used to "work" for us in the 1980s when we trained, armed and funded his rebels in Afghanistan. Too much might come out about this Frankenstein we created -- and who would then come back 20 years later to murder 3,000 of our citizens

Until today I believed the 2007 Al Jazeera interview between Benazir Bhutto and David Frost, when she said Osama had died years ago. No exact date given, she said just "years ago". It could have been 2002 or even late in 2001. The likelihood seems that OBL was killed in Tora Bora. There was no date given. Her statement was not questioned in the mainstream media. No uproar, nothing. That in itself lent credibility to what she said. If it were an error, then why didn't somebody say something to the contrary? She being the Prime Minister of Pakistan, her father having been Prime Minister, her entire life involved in the complex politics of that world, surrounded by her country's secret service, surrounded with insider connections of every kind, she seemed a likely person to have information on this topic. There was a deafening silence over her statement that OBL was dead.

Benazir was not the only one who expressed the idea that OBL was dead, or likely dead. So did veteran CIA officer Robert Baer,and former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson.

When this news broke 12 days ago, there were many, confusing and disturbing discrepancies coming out of a very few US officials who released the information, especially Brennan. Among them was that it was a 40 minute fire fight, that OBL's wife was supposedly used by him as a shield and killed. Then the shield he used wasn't his wife, then not used as a shield, then she wasn't killed. Then she was shot in the leg. Then there was no fight, OBL didn't have a weapon, then only one guy had a single weapon. Then it was his son Hamza killed, then Khalid, then not sure who the young guy in the t shirt, then Hamza again. Then 23 people and 9 children, then dozens of people, then 13 children, then he had 6 children there, then 8 of his own kids there. Then only a small handful of people. A million dollar mansion, but in fact a dilapidated, garbage strewn tenement and then only quarter of a million dollars. Then the Pakistanis did not know he was there, then they knew, then they didn't know, then they did. Then his body was IDed by DNA from a dead sister that the hospital denies was there, never heard of her at that hospital.

Then no proof. No pics. No videos, no body. Body hastily dumped in the sea. Supposedly at sea in accordance with Islamic burial rituals, however numerous Muslim scholars all over the globe dispute this, saying Muslims can only be buried at sea if they die at sea. There was pretty much an international uproar about this lack of proof, the confusion, the discrepancies. Even OBL's estranged son. It seems the US government is not believed blindly by a lot of people, who all wanted some more substantial proof.

Even the US Senators want to see pics. Some of the military were insisting that proof be released.

Then the photoshopped pic that several Senators mistakenly thought was OBL but it wasn't.

Then there were the “situation room” photos which supposedly showed Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and the rest of Obama’s security staff watching the raid which killed Bin Laden live. Then, later, that's not what happened. CIA director Leon Panetta said that Obama could not have seen the raid because the live feed was cut off before the Navy SEALS entered the compound.

Hillary with her hand over her face supposedly looking at this intense drama turned out to be a gesture of her allergies, although her face conveys drama not sniffles. It was said that Obama saw OBL shot in the eye on live video. Then it was that OBL was shot twice in the face on the side. Then once. Then in the eye, then above the eye and once in the chest.

Would Al Qaida conveniently confirm something to benefit the credibility of the US military? Since the SEALs raided the compound and the Pakistani military who had woken up the neighbors around the building 2 hours before the raid, were presumably on hand when the SEALs left to take over the compound and take the rest of the people into custody, how would Al Qaida find out if OBL were dead?

Osama's daughter said that her father was captured alive and then killed on the ground floor, dragged into the helicopter. The US officials say differently, that OBL was killed on the third floor when it was thought he might reach for a gun.

I hoped for more data before believing the US government. No, I don't believe the US government blindly. Nor anything from the CIA. Ever. Day by day bits and pieces have come out, home videos with proof that OBL was there in 2010. Then I read that "the videos released by the White House this past weekend which purport to show Osama Bin Laden making Al-Qaeda tapes in October-November 2010 are almost identical to footage first released by Pentagon front group SITE nearly four years ago."

Then the Pakistani guy who gave Reuters the photographs of the 3 dead guys but all people have not been exactly identified. One is supposed to be Hamza and one the buyer of the house. 5 people killed, presumably 1 is OBL, then who is the unphotographed dead person, whose identity has not been mentioned?

It did not make sense that OBL's wife and the child that identified him were left in the compound. But they were and now, supposedly the Pakistani government will allow them to be interviewed by the American government. Safia, OBL's 12 year old daughter, has only told her story to one news source, Al Arabiya. Safia's statements differ substantially from the Obama administration's accounting of what happened.

It was only yesterday that I first heard of the Greta Van Susteren telephone interview. Reading the transcript of the Greta Van Susteren interview with Benazir Bhutto and watching another video in which somebody suggested that Benazir had in 2007 mistakenly said Osama Bin Laden, when she meant to say Daniel Pearl, which actually seemed credible, in spite of its oddness, that I changed my mind and thought that okay, it was, maybe, OBL who died in the compound.

And just today Senators were told they can see photographic proof of OBL's death, under the chaperoned supervision of the CIA. So, as I hoped all along, more information came out, albeit slowly and in pieces.

I don't doubt OBL is dead, at all. I thought he was dead years ago. It's just that the release of the information about this raid is full of discrepancies.

My fears were more that OBL's brainwashed sons, not the peaceful ones, like Omar, but the jihadists, Hamza, Khaled, Saad and Mohammad, would be a new and possibly even more dangerous generation than old timer OBL. There is photographic proof from the Reuters pic that Hamza died in the raid.

Whatever the details that come out, it would seem that it is a good thing for the world that the death of OBL and his son, Hamza, has become official.
posted by nickyskye at 9:53 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bin Laden's Death: Why the Arab World Shrugs:

Bin Laden’s words failed to rate highly even in the jihadists’ own patch of cyberspace, which tends to he dominated by techie talk on weapons and tactics. or equally arcane exegesis of musty Islamic texts.

Our Strange Dance with Pakistan:

I told you that we burn schools because they’re teaching Christianity, but actually, most of the Taliban don’t like this burning of schools or destroying of roads and bridges, because the Taliban, too, could use them. Those acts were being done under ISI orders. They don’t want progress in Afghanistan.

posted by Sticherbeast at 10:56 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

If there was a prior to SITE release of the confirmation and a website named where it was found, I'd appreciate knowing that.

The AFP story linked upthread, which has been repeatedly referred to in this thread. May 3rd story from the AFP where they quoted their AQ contact who confirmed it. So, basically, within hours of the announcement of OBL's death, the kill was confirmed by an AQ contact in an independent news agency.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:08 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

RE Bhutto on bin Laden: she clearly misspoke. She repeatedly referred to bin Laden as alive and not yet caught in other contemporaneous media. There are many examples of this, so clinging to her one misstatement in the Frost interview is really not necessary.

In The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2007 - "Democracy for Pakistan" Benazir Bhutto wrote: (secondary references in Times of India and IRI website)

"Although tribal terrain offers many opportunities for resistance, there is another reason why Osama bin Laden has not yet been intercepted -- or that the Taliban find such easy sanctuary once again. If the Taliban are eliminated, or if their poster-boy Osama bin Laden is caught, the international cries for restoration of democracy will only deepen."

And via the AP (via Boston.com) on October 2, 2007:

Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister, said in an interview that she would cooperate with the American military in targeting Osama bin Laden.

Bhutto told BBC America, in an interview scheduled to air last night, that she would accept US assistance in the event they discovered the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda leader, but that she would prefer to have the Pakistani military execute the strike.

"If there is overwhelming evidence, I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans," Bhutto last week during the taping. "But if I couldn't do it, of course we are fighting this war together and would seek their cooperation in eliminating him."

And in a September 19, 2007 interview with NPR:

"The people who are hiding Osama bin Laden know it would be very difficult for them to do that if democracy brings the Pakistan People's Party back to government under my leadership," she said.

And in a CNN interview on November 3, 2007, Bhutto is asked explicitly about whether Musharraf knows where bin Laden is and she clearly does not disabuse the interviewer of the notion that bin Laden is still alive:

WHITFIELD: So, Ms. Bhutto, am I hearing you correctly in saying that you almost directly blame General Pervez Musharraf for helping to produce these safe havens in Pakistan, where there is terrorist activity, where, perhaps, in these safe havens someone like the Osama bin Laden, the most-wanted terrorist in the world, just might be taking refuge?

BHUTTO: I wouldn't like to go so far as to blame General Musharraf directly, but I would certainly say that many people in his administration and his security apparatus responsible for internal security make me feel very uneasy. And I believe that tribal areas of Pakistan could not have become safe havens without collusion of some of the elements in the present administration. And this is why I believe that regime change is very important.

I had hoped --

WHITFIELD: Do you Musharraf -- I'm sorry. Do you think General Musharraf knows where Osama bin Laden is?

BHUTTO: I don't think General Musharraf personally knows where Osama bin Laden is, but I do feel that people around him are many who are associated with the earlier military dictatorship of the '80s. That military dictatorship formed the Iran Mujahideen. The Mujahideen subsequently became Al Qaeda and Taliban. So I believe that break has not been made between the supporters and sympathizers of the Mujahideen and thereby, of the Taliban and Al Qaeda that is necessary. We need an administration and a security apparatus that does not have people with links to the Iran Jihad of the '80s.

So I think we can all safely set aside Bhutto as offering any reasonable shadow of a doubt as to whether bin Laden was still alive.
posted by darkstar at 11:53 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just to be clear, I understand that nickyskye has let go of that, but wanted to note that there are many instances of Bhutto on record suggesting bin Laden was still alive, just in case anyone has any remaining doubts about her intent in the Frost interview.
posted by darkstar at 11:57 PM on May 11, 2011

So, as I hoped all along, more information came out, albeit slowly and in pieces.

I think I'm on entirely safe ground noting that pretty much ALL of us hoped that, and were equally able to perceive the discrepancies. But most people were able to take the time to let events unfold and thoroughly digest the gradually unfolding information and analysis that's becoming available, rather than build houses of cards, foster unfounded rumors, and clutter the information stream with some truly unreliable and farfetched content. You are not alone at all in being aware of and curious about discrepancies, but your choice about how to react was definitely unusual, and your speculations departed from the available facts significantly. It added a lot of noise to the signal and, in the end, it doesn't seem as if the side trip was ever necessary.

Whatever the details that come out, it would seem that it is a good thing for the world that the death of OBL and his son, Hamza, has become official.

...yes, probably so. That's why the obsession over the exact chain of events in the compound, as long as the fact of OBL's death remains unchanged, is less important to so many people.
posted by Miko at 4:23 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

This story is a riot. Do we assume that what they saw in an "electronic image" was the same fake OBL picture millions of us got in email? Ugh, media literacy please, Congresspeople.
posted by Miko at 4:26 AM on May 12, 2011

You asked, I linked. I have no faith in Paul Joseph Watson, nor do I know anything about him, am not a fan of Prison Planet.

So the only cite you can find about SITE making things up is someone you have no faith in. Check.
posted by inigo2 at 4:32 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I just watched this again to make sure I didn't mishear, but Sen. James Inhofe was just on Anderson Cooper's CNN show and claimed to have seen 15 photos of OBL taken after the raid and said clearly that the first 3 were taken while OBL was still alive. It was not clear whether this was before or after he was shot. He also described one of the bullets as having gone in through the ear and out through the opposite eye (or vice versa) so there were brains 'hanging out'.

Here's the video. It sounds like he got confused whether Bin Laden was alive, but I could be wrong. Certainly it's odd that neither he nor the anchor followed up on that point.

inigo2 asked: I haven't found any cites that they just make shit up out of thin air. Have you?

As a response I posted Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid, which talks about SITE Intelligence making stuff up.

That is far from obvious in your original comment:

Huh, you think that maybe there was an Al Qaida connected person in the compound who passed on the news?

Paul Joseph Watson's thoughts on why he thinks it unlikely OBL is dead in this raid.

If you put the phrase "The statement's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on websites where the group traditionally puts out its messages." there are many links to check out from around the world.

Benazir was not the only one who expressed the idea that OBL was dead, or likely dead. So did veteran CIA officer Robert Baer,and former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson.

What the hell? I covered this a comment made 10 hours before you responded, are you even bothering to read anything before you spout off?

When this news broke 12 days ago, there were many, confusing and disturbing discrepancies coming out of a very few US officials who released the information, especially Brennan.

This is a completely legitimate statement and valid reasoning for questioning the administration. It is not, however, reason to buy into conspiracy theories, that don't hold up with the slightest fact checking or critical thought.

She's on the payroll of evil Blackwater and that is automatically suspect, imo, as not having an iota of ethics. Since SITE Intelligence released the Al Qaida confirmation, not offering the name of the website where they found it, the fact it has not been corroborated by any other news source, isn't encouraging in terms of their credibility

Misha linked to a Reuters story that they translated and it listed the name of the translators.

Then I read that "the videos released by the White House this past weekend which purport to show Osama Bin Laden making Al-Qaeda tapes in October-November 2010 are almost identical to footage first released by Pentagon front group SITE nearly four years ago."

If you're quoting someone or something, could you link to the source, please?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:35 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

BBC: Bin Laden death 'not an assassination' - Eric Holder

Mr Holder told the BBC the operation was a "kill or capture mission" and that Bin Laden's surrender would have been accepted if offered.
[...]
"I actually think that the dotting of the i's and the crossing of the t's is what separates the United States, the United Kingdom, our allies, from those who we are fighting," he said.

posted by Joe in Australia at 4:57 AM on May 12, 2011

Yes Joe, was there something you wanted to share with the class, some grand point?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:06 AM on May 12, 2011

Declan Walsh asks : Whose side is Pakistan's ISI really on?
posted by adamvasco at 6:59 AM on May 12, 2011

There's a MeFi post about the article too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:04 AM on May 12, 2011

Oberlin College professors, Jafar Mahallati and Ben Schiff, write about the effects Osama bin Laden's death will have on the war on terror and relations between the United States and Islamic countries.
posted by bardophile at 7:14 AM on May 12, 2011

If you're quoting someone or something, could you link to the source, please?

Brandon, she was quoting the hilarious "10 Facts That Prove the Bin Laden Fable is a Contrived Hoax" article by the Prison Planet fella who thinks OBL died in July, 2001. Amusingly, there is no cite or proof offered in that article beyond its own naked assertion that the videos are, indeed, "almost identical," whatever that would even mean, even if it were true. Isn't being "almost" identical a bit like being almost pregnant? It's not as if old footage of OBL would magically evolve over the years. And if the videos were faked, then why wouldn't they just fake one that was obviously very different from other videos? The conspiracy theory doesn't even make sense within its own narrative.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:15 AM on May 12, 2011

Here's the video. It sounds like he got confused whether Bin Laden was alive, but I could be wrong. Certainly it's odd that neither he nor the anchor followed up on that point.

I think I figured it out. What he actually means is that the first three photos were historical ones of Bin Ladin, file photos basically, that could be used as a reference to compare the post-mortem shots from the actual raid. That explains why he thought it was unremarkable. AC had probably also been briefed on this. The wording is unremarkable if you already know this, but very ambiguous if you don't.
posted by unSane at 7:17 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks Bardophile. That will make for interesting conversation for the reunion this month!
posted by rosswald at 7:18 AM on May 12, 2011

Fred Clark (Slacktivist) reflects on Bin Laden's death and the principles of just war in "Moral men and immoral society and the death of bin Laden" and "Just, juster, justest."
posted by octobersurprise at 7:50 AM on May 12, 2011

In an Effort to "Validate the Death" of bin Laden, Inhofe Becomes First Senator To See Photos

"Though President Obama decided not to release them, to the public, members of Congress are now viewing 15 photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who claimed to be the first lawmaker to view them, said the photos are 'pretty gruesome' and prove that 'he is gone. He’s history.'"*

posted by ericb at 8:06 AM on May 12, 2011

From the "Moral men and immoral society and the death of bin Laden" link:

The special rapporteurs are correct that apart from “exceptional cases … the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially decided punishment.” I don’t think it’s difficult to argue that Osama bin Laden constituted an exceptional case, but I also share their concern that such exceptional cases not “set precedents” that would supplant the norm of legal processes in most cases.

My own thoughts are similar, but the question remains about what are "exceptional cases." Anwar Awlaki, the US citizen supposedly hiding in Yemen, is probably an exceptional case. But how far down the chain do exceptional cases go? Is Moammar Gadhafi one? Was David Koresh one?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:07 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

"In a Washington Post op-ed today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) writes that the evidence used to find Osama Bin Laden was not produced by torture. The senator also said that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded 'false and misleading information.'"*

posted by ericb at 8:08 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

VIDEO: Bush’s Failed Hunt For Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 8:09 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on Wednesday night that President George W. Bush wasn’t interested in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. 'I don’t think they really wanted to get bin Laden,' Wilkerson said."*

posted by ericb at 8:11 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Jon Stewart aptly described the Bush Administration as "the Winkelvoss twins of bin Laden."
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:11 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

who would then come back 20 years later to murder 3,000 of our citizens

Not 3,000 of our citizens. 2,669 United States citizens and 372 foreign nationals.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:15 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is James Brown still dead?

Wait, James Brown is dead??
posted by humannaire at 8:34 AM on May 12, 2011

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) will see 'satisfaction' in photos

"More than just sating his own curiosity, King said he thinks that seeing the photos will give him some credibility in talking about bin Laden’s killing. 'I’ll be able to say, "yes, bin Laden was killed, I saw it" and I think it will give some – again just in public appearances and talking to people if the debate does arise in the next year or so is he really dead.'"

posted by ericb at 8:40 AM on May 12, 2011

From ericb's last link:

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, said he was not interested in seeing them, quipping: “I’ve seen enough dead people.”
posted by Miko at 8:43 AM on May 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

James Brown is Doing It To Death
posted by philip-random at 8:43 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

"In a Washington Post op-ed today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) writes that the evidence used to find Osama Bin Laden was not produced by torture. The senator also said that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed yielded 'false and misleading information.'"*

McCain also writes in that Op-Ed, "I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear — true or false — if he believes it will relieve his suffering. Often, information provided to stop the torture is deliberately misleading."

If only his record on "enhanced interrogation" weren't muddied.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:54 AM on May 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

I wonder what a disinformation campaign would look like when executed on MeFi. Rather like this thread, I suspect.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:20 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I wonder what a disinformation campaign would look like when executed on MeFi. Rather like this thread, I suspect.

"Paging Holden Karnofsky: please pick up the Blue Courtesy Phone. Mr. Holden Kar-Nof-Sky. You have a call on the Blue Courtesy Phone."
posted by zarq at 9:27 AM on May 12, 2011

I wonder what a disinformation campaign would look like when executed on MeFi. Rather like this thread, I suspect.

There should be a term for someone who willfully sows crazy ideas, so that an entire group is tarred with those ideas. Like an agent provocateur for crazy.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:31 AM on May 12, 2011

I wonder what a disinformation campaign would look like when executed on MeFi. Rather like this thread, I suspect.

Still trying to cover up for your Reptillian masters, eh? It won't work. It'll never work. The truth will be known, information wants to be free to be manipulated!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:52 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Hunt for Osama's Son Hamza Bin Laden -- "Pakistan officials say Hamza bin Laden, perhaps Osama's most militant son, escaped the raid that killed his father. David A. Graham reports on why having this bin Laden on the loose could be dangerous."
posted by ericb at 10:08 AM on May 12, 2011

"Pakistan officials say Hamza bin Laden, perhaps Osama's most militant son, escaped the raid that killed his father. David A. Graham reports on why having this bin Laden on the loose could be dangerous."

Luckily the rest of the bin Laden clan is helping to bring them to justice.
posted by inigo2 at 10:14 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

(60 Minutes, aired April 2, 2006) According to OBL's former bodyguard, OBL would have preferred to be killed than captured. It was this bodyguard, Abu Jandal aka Nasser al-Bahri, who arranged for OBL to have a 17 year old Yemeni 4th wife.

Interesting detail among many from the 60 Minutes site: "A lot of Americans think bin Laden suffers from a kidney problem and that he might even need a dialysis. When you were with him, were there any indications that he had any health problems?" Simon asks.

"Never. The only problem Sheikh Osama suffered from is with his vocal chords," Abu Jandal replies. "He was affected by missiles that contained some chemicals during the Jihad against the Soviets. Only his vocal chords were affected."

Also with the same former bodyguard, a quite fascinating interview. Video from PBS: Meeting Osama bin Laden

Silly but interesting, in Bogota, Colombia: Security guard dresses as Osama Bin Laden
posted by nickyskye at 11:14 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

* oops, forgot to include the funeral poster for a memorial service in Lahore, Pakistan this Friday.
posted by nickyskye at 11:16 AM on May 12, 2011

Silly but interesting, in Bogota, Colombia: Security guard dresses as Osama Bin Laden

This reminds me of the time back in NYU when I was doing sketch comedy with some people. Since our rehearsal was at an NYU building, we needed to make fake IDs for our non-student friends.

My buddy decided to make all their fake IDs say "OSAMA BIN LADEN" on them, so that if they later got caught, we could always retort, "oh yeah, well you're the guy who let Osama bin Laden into Tisch Hall, so who's the real screw-up."
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:23 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The really sad thing about John McCain is that, although he's generally a disingenuous jerk, he actually has some decent things to say (torture, comprehensive immigration reform, etc.). It's too bad he really becomes a political Mr. Hyde whenever he's approaching or recently following a general election. Then it's like some kind of Cordyceps fungus takes over his brain and makes him climb to the top of a tall branch and start eating his own rabid right-wing feces or something.
posted by darkstar at 11:35 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

If his 2008 run was somehow erased from history he'd actually be kind of alright for a Republican.
posted by Artw at 11:52 AM on May 12, 2011

Then it's like some kind of Cordyceps fungus takes over his brain and makes him climb to the top of a tall branch and start eating his own rabid right-wing feces or something.

They hang modules off of him to try and control him with voices. The Race module is particularly un-cute.
posted by Artw at 11:54 AM on May 12, 2011

A lot of Americans think bin Laden suffers from a kidney problem and that he might even need a dialysis ...

The Navy Seals didn't find a dialysis machine or medication for any sort of rumored kidney problem. They, however, scooped up his meeds.

NBC: What Was In Medicine Chests At Bin Laden Compound? -- "Nearly a dozen drugs, including those to treat stress, stomach ulcers, recovered after raid"
posted by ericb at 12:00 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder what a disinformation campaign would look like when executed on MeFi. Rather like this thread, I suspect.

I wonder what a comment trying to draw attention away from the thread containing the actual disinformation campaign would look like. Rather like that comment, I suspect.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:06 PM on May 12, 2011

Well, if anyone was under stress...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:07 PM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Bin Laden's Secret Diary

22 November 2010
Very tired today. Stayed up late last night with friends arguing about whether or not dishwashers were blasphemous. And you can't just say "yes" and be done with it. Everyone wants reasons. In the end I told them that, God willing, we should concentrate our efforts on eliminating bigger evils – America, Israel, music – and leave smaller doctrinal questions about household appliances to one side for now. Hassan says some of the new ones use less water than the old, non-blasphemous way of washing-up, but of course this is not the point.

posted by Artw at 12:10 PM on May 12, 2011 [13 favorites]

If his 2008 run was somehow erased from history he'd actually be kind of alright for a Republican.

I think you are mistaken.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:13 PM on May 12, 2011

Well, for a republican...
posted by Artw at 12:19 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Again, I suspect the Cordyceps. Have you seen what that shit does to other creatures?
posted by darkstar at 12:20 PM on May 12, 2011

Dear Diary,

While the lack of phone and internet is good, allowing one to focus on the battle ahead, I do miss a bit of mindless surfing. Sigh. Now, I will never know how the evil women of the decadent reality TV show Sex in the City fared. Will they punished or will evil American ways consume their soul?

I knew the struggle would be hard, but it's the little things that make it hardest.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:25 PM on May 12, 2011

I think I figured it out. What he actually means is that the first three photos were historical ones of Bin Ladin, file photos basically, that could be used as a reference to compare the post-mortem shots from the actual raid.

Yep, Inhofe explains that that was the case.

CNN: Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe comments after being the first senator to see Osama bin Laden's death photos.

ABC: Sen. Jim Inhofe Views 'Really Bad Graphic' Osama bin Laden Photos (video)

FOX News: Inhofe Talks About Seeing Pictures of Bin Laden's Body.
posted by ericb at 1:05 PM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I figured that's what was up when UnSane posted last night, but I thought i'd wait and see.

ericb, thank you for the video links. You are simply the best, my good man.
posted by cashman at 1:45 PM on May 12, 2011

Well, for a republican...

For "kinda alright for a Republican," see Tom Campbell.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:53 PM on May 12, 2011

How bin Laden emailed without being detected -- "With no Internet in hideout, he would shuttle couriers and thumb drives to cafes."
posted by ericb at 2:00 PM on May 12, 2011

Just because there has been so much FUD thrown up in the days since bin Laden's death, it's nice to reflect on two clarified points that we know beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. OBL was alive until he was killed in the Abbotabad raid this month.

2. Tortureboarding did not lead to any intelligence that assisted in his location. Tortureboarding, in fact, only provided obfuscating "intel" about him and has once more demonstrated how ineffective (and potentially damaging) it is as a means of interrogation.

These two facts now seem quite uncontroversial.
posted by darkstar at 2:38 PM on May 12, 2011

2. Tortureboarding did not lead to any intelligence that assisted in his location. Tortureboarding, in fact, only provided obfuscating "intel" about him and has once more demonstrated how ineffective (and potentially damaging) it is as a means of interrogation.

These two facts now seem quite uncontroversial.

Got a link? I do not dispute the fact myself, but I'd love to have somewhere easy to point people.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:58 PM on May 12, 2011

If McCain can't convince them, nothing will.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 3:23 PM on May 12, 2011

Dianne Feinstein, Donald Rumsfeld and John McCain are on record saying that waterboarding torture did not lead to any actionable intelligence in tracking bin Laden.

Feinstein from her perch as the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee:

"I happen to know a good deal about how those interrogations were conducted, and in my view, nothing justifies the kind of procedures that were used," Feinstein said.

She said torture did not elicit the information that ultimately led to bin Laden. Instead, she attributed the operation's success to painstaking work by a rejuvenated intelligence apparatus that has moved beyond its failures during the Iraq war.

McCain from his discussions with CIA Director Leon Panetta:

I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.

In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.

Rumsfeld actually went on record saying waterboarding was NEVER done, then he went on Fox News to do a complete flip-flop a day later, so he can probably be dismissed as having any credibility one way or the other. But Feinstein and McCain are not so easily dismissed.
posted by darkstar at 3:34 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Though, admittedly, with McCain's brain fungus parasite, anything's possible.
posted by darkstar at 3:36 PM on May 12, 2011

Twists and turns marked hunt for bin Laden -- "US had only vague plan for what to do if he was captured alive."
posted by ericb at 5:12 PM on May 12, 2011

Bin Laden's Fugitive Trail Emerges.
posted by ericb at 5:13 PM on May 12, 2011

Trying to figure out the names and details of who was in the compound.

Bin Laden, one of the officials noted, had only three men with him in his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound at the time of the assault. U.S. officials have said that aside from bin Laden, the three men who lived in the compound and who were killed in the raid were bin Laden's son and two trusted couriers.

So there were only 4 men killed in the compound, not five. OBL, his son, Hamza, 18 years old, and two couriers, who were the brothers/cousins who also purchased the compound, arranged for it to be built, 6/7 or so years ago.

One woman was killed, the wife of one of the couriers.

The couriers were Kuwaiti-born Pakistanis. One went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. He was a Pakistani Pashtun who was born and grew up in Kuwait and spoke Pashto (in a cultivated, urban accent)[4] and Arabic.[5] He was a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

That's interesting to know, as this courier would have known not only Urdu, the language of Pakistan, but Pashto, one of the main languages of the Afghani Taliban (similar to Farsi, the language of Iran), as well as Arabic, Osama's mother tongue.

Al-Kuwaiti was said to be one of the two tall fair-skinned bearded men who claimed to be ethnic Pashtuns and were known in the community to be living at the house and occasionally attended local funerals. He went locally by the name Arshad Khan, and his brother (or cousin as some neighbors thought) went by the name Tareq Khan.

The Reuters graphic pics of the 2 dead men in the compound, other than Hamza in the t shirt, do not show men who are particularly fair skinned by Pakistani standards, nor bearded. They also look quite young, maybe 35 or so and, imo, do not look like brothers, maybe cousins?

Qazi Mahfooz Ul Haq, a doctor, told the AP that he sold a plot of land to Arshad in 2005. He said the buyer was a sturdily built man who had a tuft of hair under his lower lip.

One of the men in the Reuters pics had a tuft of hair under his lower lip, that must be "Arshad Khan" aka Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

So OBL's wife, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, was there, the courier's wife who was shot, Safia, OBL's 12 year old daughter. So that makes for 7 known out of the 22 people approx, who were in the compound. There were purportedly 8 children of OBL's there. He had 2 other wives there, Khairiah Sabar, a child psychologist and Siham Sabar, a teacher of Arabic grammar.

> Qasim, whose father was seized by soldiers during the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed, said that two families had been living in the compound. They were headed by Arshad Khan, said to be in his forties, and his young brother Tariq.
Qasim said the Khans had eight or nine children between them, and that two or three women also lived in the house. He was not sure exactly how many because the women always wore burkas when they left the compound.
He knew the names of two of the children, Abdur Rahman and Khalid, both six or seven years old. These children also spoke in cultivated Pashtu.

Watching the documentary, The Oath, on Instant NetFlix, with OBL's former bodyguard. Really fascinating film.

Would appreciate a thought on the idea that the US militarily invaded Islamic countries, for oil, and the modern, from 1980's onwards, jihadists are retaliating for this domination, except for the Bosnian war in which case the jihadists went into to protect fellow Muslims from "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs. Has the US incited these jihadists only because we invaded their countries?

A few of details from OBL's will.
posted by nickyskye at 5:36 PM on May 12, 2011

CBS: Animated depiction of the raid on the compound.
posted by nickyskye at 5:57 PM on May 12, 2011

but Pashto, one of the main languages of the Afghani Taliban (similar to Farsi, the language of Iran)

No, Dari is the one that is similar (it is just a dialect) of Farsi, and it is spoken by the Tajiks of Afghanistan. Pashto is very different and not sure what languages it's related to.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:16 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's not just about oil. America has been mucking around in the region for decades, attempting to control things for its benefit. That's pissed off a lot people, understandably so.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:21 PM on May 12, 2011

Brandon Blatcher, everyone has. I think by this stage Pakistan has become a trophy - it's like "Hey, if we conquer Pakistan then we unlock the secret level!"

Of course, the secret level involves bright lights, loud noises, and high levels of radiation followed by a nuclear winter.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:45 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not just about oil, also (majorly) about access to nuclear power and control of global shipping lanes. Also, oil isn't just "fuel to let lazy Westerners drive their cars more," but also "significant resource maintaining the low cost of the food supply" and "basic building block of every element of plastics manufacturing in world economy, including plastics for health care, consumer goods, construction, etc."

Some of the world's most strategic resources are varying under the control/contestation of some of its most unstable and regressive governments, and that is a legitimate problem.
posted by Miko at 6:45 PM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's good remember that Canada is America's largest trading parter, largest supplier of oil and is rich with another vital resource, water.

While the relationship with Canada isn't as explosive, I recall reading that there has been various unsavory dealings and fights about a Canadian oil line into America. Anyone have more information on this or I wrong?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:14 PM on May 12, 2011

Would appreciate a thought on the idea that the US militarily invaded Islamic countries, for oil, and the modern, from 1980's onwards, jihadists are retaliating for this domination, except for the Bosnian war in which case the jihadists went into to protect fellow Muslims from 'ethnic cleansing' by the Serbs. Has the US incited these jihadists only because we invaded their countries?

Not only because we invaded their countries, but that didn't help. Some other factors:

The US helped overthrow Iran's democratically-elected president in 1953 and installed the Shah of Iran and the SAVAK secret police.

Generally, the US has supported autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East for decades to maintain access to Mid-eastern oil, a clear contradiction with our declared values that undermines our credibility and legitimacy.

For the 9/11 attacks specifically, Osama bin Laden and several of the hijackers listed sanctions against Iraq, US troops in Saudi Arabia, and US support for Israel as their motives.

I don't believe that the West is at war with Islam, but that was one of Osama bin Laden's messages, and invading Iraq for no apparent reason (or lying about the claimed reasons) supported his position.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:32 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

SEAL helmet cams recorded entire bin Laden raid

A new picture emerged Thursday of what really happened the night the Navy SEALs swooped in on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports the 40 minutes it took to kill bin Laden and scoop his archives into garbage bags were all recorded by tiny helmet cameras worn by each of the 25 SEALs.

Officials reviewing those videos are still reconstructing a more accurate version of what happened. We now know that the only firefight took place in the guest house, where one of bin Laden's couriers opened fire and was quickly gunned down. No one in the main building got off a shot or was even armed, although there were weapons nearby.

The SEALs first saw bin Laden when he came out on the third floor landing. They fired, but missed. He retreated to his bedroom, and the first SEAL through the door grabbed bin Laden's daughters and pulled them aside.

When the second SEAL entered, bin Laden's wife rushed forward at him -- or perhaps was pushed by bin Laden. The SEAL shoved her aside and shot bin Laden in the chest. A third seal shot him in the head. [more ...]

posted by ericb at 7:36 PM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sources: U.S. grills 'hostile' bin Laden wives, via Pakistan officials

Three of Osama bin Laden's wives have been interrogated by U.S. intelligence officers under the supervision of Pakistani's intelligence service, according to sources in both governments.

The women -- who were all interviewed together -- were "hostile" toward the Americans, according to a senior Pakistani government official with direct knowledge of the post-bin Laden investigation and two senior U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The eldest of the three wives spoke for the group.

Members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence were in the room along with the U.S. intelligence officers, the officials said. The Americans had wanted to question the wives separately to figure out inconsistencies in their stories.

All three officials said that the interrogation didn't yield much new information, while adding that it was early in the process. [more ...]

posted by ericb at 7:39 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ericb: that's a very different story to the one we first heard and it's hard to see how "fog of war" could account for the discrepancies. Also, how do three (four?) people get killed in an assault on a building in which nobody is armed?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:55 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) sees Osama bin Laden pics

Michele Bachmann said Thursday that she got a glimpse of the reportedly graphic photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse, and that she's "convinced we got our man."

Bachmann made the comments on her Twitter feed, after becoming one of several congressional members to be shown the photos by the CIA.

"Today at the CIA, I saw the bin Laden photos. I am convinced we got our man. I also support a release of the DNA match to the public," she said.

posted by ericb at 8:04 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Officials: Bin Laden 'complacent' in Pakistan, no sign of escape plan.
posted by ericb at 8:08 PM on May 12, 2011

Bin Laden wanted to carry out attacks to prevent Obama from being reelected.
posted by ericb at 8:11 PM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Heh. So that's what it takes to get Obama to take you out — fuck with his reelection.
posted by klangklangston at 8:23 PM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't think Michele Bachmann understands how DNA tests and chains of evidence work. If she already suspects that she's been lied to, why would the sight of a computer printout change her mind?
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:51 PM on May 12, 2011

Sure, America had been mucking about not only for materials like oil and gas, and for strategic places to put bases. But it's not all just about economics. The neocons really did think that they could remodel the Middle East. A nominally democratic Iraq would have been an amazing accomplishment for them. The US would have reasserted itself as a dangerous power with whom not to fuck, generated its own powerful, oil-rich ally in the process, and all the while they themselves could profitably double-deal into their companies and their cronies' companies for all of the contracting and subcontracting.

The problem was that they were just terrible at warmongering and nation-building, because they truly had no idea what they were doing. Really. No idea.

The idea that the Bush administration were a bunch of evil geniuses who knew all the right angles to invade countries in order to steal their riches is much more comforting than the reality that they were a bunch of ethnocentric, saber-rattling fuck-ups who didn't know how to say "I don't know" or "this isn't working out, commence Plan B" or "let's think of a Plan B."
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:49 PM on May 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

I don't think Michele Bachmann understands how DNA tests and chains of evidence work. If she already suspects that she's been lied to, why would the sight of a computer printout change her mind?

I think what changed her mind was the fact that demanding more evidence was a good performance to show that she doesn't trust Obama, but the deather angle won't get her any votes, so she's not going to run any further with that. I have no problem being completely cynical about her motivations.

On the other hand, if she is sincere, then that is indeed weird. Those sorts of holes are common to every conspiracy narrative. If your presumption is that the administration is going to lie to you, then why wouldn't they just forge everything and forge everything well? A photo of his dead body or his DNA test doesn't really mean anything at all unless you already trust the government, in which case you wouldn't have needed that evidence in the first place. The whole thing is a dog and pony show.

The "show me the evidence" talk is more purely symbolic than people want to admit. The real proof that OBL is dead comes from contacts of his who will notice that he is, you know, dead, and then go to newspapers and put out press releases and such reflecting on the fact that OBL is dead.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:01 PM on May 12, 2011

That's interesting to know, as this courier would have known not only Urdu, the language of Pakistan, but Pashto, one of the main languages of the Afghani Taliban (similar to Farsi, the language of Iran), as well as Arabic, Osama's mother tongue.

That is interesting. Ya thunk tha him a being a born a in the Pashtun province has anything to do wit speakin Pashto, ah heHEAHell no. And my congressman speaks Urdu. An whatta they speak in KUwait...Arabic.

In the trade we call this "laying false trails" or "mudding the waters"
<:
posted by clavdivs at 11:54 PM on May 12, 2011

because they truly had no idea what they were doing. Really. No idea.

well there was this plan, you see,

The US would have reasserted itself as a dangerous power with whom not to fuck, generated its own powerful, oil-rich ally in the process...

kidding, though if I were the mastermind, unstability would create it's own ally even if not friendly.
simple, they need the day to day revenue to stay afloat and that means sell to anyone, OPEC is a formality and china can only buy so much. Bluff is the trick. USians, we got one full year of oil and gas at current consumption if all imports are halted. Now, the OPEC countries cannot go a year without that oil cash. And if that doesnt work, there is always the bushel of wheat for a barrel of oil plan.
twirls mustache
posted by clavdivs at 12:13 AM on May 13, 2011

ericb: "Bin Laden wanted to carry out attacks to prevent Obama from being reelected."

Holy crap, that comments section is nuts. Has RawStory always been overrun by wingnut conspiracy theorists or did this particular post get linked by FreeRepublic or something?

(Also: only two-and-a-half weeks and 1,423 comments to go until this post beats the first Sarah Palin thread as the lengthiest discussion in Mefi history.)
posted by Rhaomi at 1:06 AM on May 13, 2011

Breaking news: Pakistani suicide bombers kill 80 other Pakistanis, in retailiation for the USA taking out a Saudi citizen.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:37 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

1,423 comments to go until this post beats the first Sarah Palin thread as the lengthiest discussion in Mefi history

And I was there!
posted by grubi at 5:56 AM on May 13, 2011

The idea that the Bush administration were a bunch of evil geniuses who knew all the right angles to invade countries in order to steal their riches

That's actually colored a lot differently than what I'm saying. What I wanted to note is that, under any concievable government, the US and other first world nations really do need to continue to be concerned with the stability of the region, precisely because of the importance of its resources. "Stealing riches" is one way to look at the Bush Administration's interests because of their many personal connections to the oil industry, but in Western countries we are utterly dependent on stable oil supplies and open global trade routes and of course on nuclear weapons not being in the hands of people who would use them readily, and no matter who's in charge, it's legitimate for government to see that those conditions on which we depend are managed and maintained.

South America is full of unstable governments. We've been involved in SA here and there, but not to the extent we have in the Middle East, simply because the resources at stake are not as important to the running of the global machinery that maintains economic growth worldwide. If there's something to blame, it's the pressure for constant growth that fiat currency demands, and capitalistic systems require. But I don't think it's particularly "neocon" to try to influence stability in the Middle East through a variety of channels.
posted by Miko at 6:02 AM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

* Though I agree the neocons have a particularly whackjob take on why and how to go about the job of securing stability. No challenge there. Just that they're not alone in caring about it.
posted by Miko at 6:07 AM on May 13, 2011

Just FYI, this thread is the second largest in Mefi history. The largest was the thread announcing Sarah Palin as VP. List of large threads here.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:14 AM on May 13, 2011

Or maybe here.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:15 AM on May 13, 2011

Other things that are large:

1. 7-11 Big Gulp
posted by Miko at 6:22 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Brandon Blatcher: "Or maybe here."

Does that count deleted comment or something? I thought the Palin thread only had 5,555.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:33 AM on May 13, 2011

Other things that are large:

Bin Laden was rather tall.

Does that count deleted comment or something? I thought the Palin thread only had 5,555.

Yes, I assumed so. The actual thread is that large, so the infodumpster is probably grabbing deleted comments too.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:37 AM on May 13, 2011

There's an fascinating article in The New Yorker today, "Annals of Diplomacy: The Double Game. The unintended consequences of American funding in Pakistan" which analyzes the history of US funding of Pakistan.

One of the things the author mentions is that we began funding Pakistan during the Cold War in an effort to steer that country into an ally against Communism. We poured billions of dollars into their economy while training and equipping their military and intelligence services. Choosing to fund Pakistan over India was a strategic choice -- India seemed like a poor bet at the time.

Now, nearly 60 years later: India has become the state that we tried to create in Pakistan. It is a rising economic star, militarily powerful and democratic, and it shares American interests. Pakistan, however, is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism. Politically and economically, it verges on being a failed state. And, despite Pakistani avowals to the contrary, America’s worst enemy, Osama bin Laden, had been hiding there for years—in strikingly comfortable circumstances—before U.S. commandos finally tracked him down and killed him, on May 2nd.

American aid is hardly the only factor that led these two countries to such disparate outcomes. But, at this pivotal moment, it would be a mistake not to examine the degree to which U.S. dollars have undermined our strategic relationship with Pakistan—and created monstrous contradictions within Pakistan itself.

posted by zarq at 6:45 AM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

Maybe the Infodump...?

I'm pretty sure that's how, but I just sent an email to the mods. If my account is suddenly disabled, we'll know I've stumbled onto something larger than all of us. If so, avenge me and water my plants, thanks!

Choosing to fund Pakistan over India was a strategic choice -- India seemed like a poor bet at the time.

It takes a while to become a master chef. Until then, mistakes in the kitchen are common.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:59 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

master chef

The guy from Halo?
posted by grubi at 7:11 AM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm adding Infodumpster links to the wiki's "Longest Thread" page now. None of the comment counts on the first 10 threads on that infodumpster seem to be accurate. They're all higher than the actual counts on the thread pages.
posted by zarq at 7:17 AM on May 13, 2011

Yeah, the dumpster just presents a nice interface to some of the data in the Infodump, and the comment count data in the Infodump includes deleted comments, so for any thread with one or more deleted comments the count on the site won't match the count in the data.

Implication thereof is that you can figure out how many comments were deleted from any given thread by comparing the two.
posted by cortex at 7:19 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

The analogy works better if the US is the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.

They're all higher than the actual counts on the thread pages.

I've lit the cortex signal!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:21 AM on May 13, 2011

(And yes, clearly, you cannot make a megathread omelet without deleting some comment eggs. Or something.)
posted by cortex at 7:24 AM on May 13, 2011

Rhaomi i writes "(Also: only two-and-a-half weeks and 1,423 comments to go until this post beats the first Sarah Palin thread as the lengthiest discussion in Mefi history.)"

I don't think we are going to be successful in bumping that thread from number one; if only because of the successful splitting off of sub threads.
posted by Mitheral at 7:52 AM on May 13, 2011

That's actually colored a lot differently than what I'm saying. What I wanted to note is that, under any concievable government, the US and other first world nations really do need to continue to be concerned with the stability of the region, precisely because of the importance of its resources. "Stealing riches" is one way to look at the Bush Administration's interests because of their many personal connections to the oil industry, but in Western countries we are utterly dependent on stable oil supplies and open global trade routes and of course on nuclear weapons not being in the hands of people who would use them readily, and no matter who's in charge, it's legitimate for government to see that those conditions on which we depend are managed and maintained.

That's pretty much what I said above about conspiracies vs. strategies vs. national interests. No matter who is in office, the US is going to continue to have an enormous appetite for oil, and more generally and saliently, low commodity prices for oil, so we have a real, concrete, palpable national interest in stability where oil is produced.

But identifying these interests as part of the neocon project not only misidentifies whose interest is at stake. It completely misses the point of neoconservatism, which was an outgrowth of neoliberalism, which was a dissident movement in the American Left. There is a direct paper trail, so to speak, back through Irving Kristol to Marx and Lenin. Neocons intended that the US should pursue disruptive foreign policy. As clavdivs alludes, sometimes instability is an ally. In this sense, I'm not sure it's correct to say they had no idea what they were doing.
posted by dhartung at 8:00 AM on May 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

Huh... if that is what it's doing, I don't understand how. The deletedthread blog identifies nuked posts by the gaps in thread IDs on the front page, but I don't know how that would work with comments. There isn't a user-viewable way to account for deleted comments as far as I know. Maybe the Infodump...?

Serendipity. Completely unrelated, but I noticed yesterday that the deletedthread blog hasn't been updating since March 29, and I *know* there have been deleted posts since then ... I'll take it to Meta, if it hasn't been meta'd already ... how else am I supposed to catch up on deletion reasons ... rss?
posted by mrgrimm at 8:13 AM on May 13, 2011

Reuters: The Plan To Kill Bin Laden.
posted by ericb at 8:15 AM on May 13, 2011

A new poll finds 48 percent of global investors rate Obama as "stronger than Bush on terrorism."

"Global investors say President Barack Obama has done a better job of fighting terrorism than former President George W. Bush, while U.S. investors rate the ex- president higher."

posted by ericb at 8:18 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

mrgrimm, the Mefi Deleted Posts greasemonkey script works in Firefox and Safari and is not hard to install.

Here's the MetaTalk thread on the Deleted Threads Blog.

dead cousin ted has been busty. His explanation is here.
posted by zarq at 8:34 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Shit. BUSY. He's been BUSY.

My kingdom for an edit window.
posted by zarq at 8:35 AM on May 13, 2011 [6 favorites]

No no, you said it right.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:39 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

They're all higher than the actual counts on the thread pages.

And here, I thought I had specifically purchased the 600-thread-count, Egyptian cotton Metafilter.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:28 AM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

Also: only two-and-a-half weeks and 1,423 comments to go until this post beats the first Sarah Palin thread as the lengthiest discussion in Mefi history.

Now I feel sad about all the crazy that the Michael Moore thread is leaching from this thread...
posted by Artw at 9:37 AM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

Thanks Meatbomb. Re Pashto and Farsi: So, yes, they are similar and no, they wouldn't totally understand one another. Only a few words here and there.

But yes, Dari is the one that is very close to Farsi. Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language and Farsi is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.
posted by nickyskye at 9:55 AM on May 13, 2011

But yes, Dari is the one that is very close to Farsi. Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language and Farsi is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.

I think we've finally found our common ground, something we can all agree on. Let's see if we can't build on it & come to a consensus on the issues before us.
posted by scalefree at 10:21 AM on May 13, 2011

BTW -- last night MSNBC aired interviews (w/ overdub translations) with a few locals who said that when they heard the commotion at the compound they went to see what was going on. They were rebuffed and stated that the compound was being guarded by commandos with laser-guided scopes who, in Pashto, told them to stay away. MSNBC analysts said that some Navy Seals and others are fluent in Middle-Eastern languages. As well, they've been known to train Afghanis (and others) who accompany them on raids and missions.
posted by ericb at 10:33 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Porn found in bin Laden lair, officials say --"A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday."

I'm beginning to wonder if we should resign ourselves to these idiotic "updates" every few days.

WE FOUND HIS JOURNALS!

WE FOUND A POSSIBLE APHRODESIAC!

WE FOUND PORN!

WE FOUND A HALF-EATEN PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH!

WE FOUND....

wait for it

...TOOTHPASTE! THE MASS MURDERER USED AQUAFRESH!

Who gives a shit, really?
posted by zarq at 10:37 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm beginning to wonder if we should resign ourselves to these idiotic "updates" every few days.

24 hours news cycle. They gotten put *something* on the air, you know?

I'm waiting for the 10,000 word, multi source article that describes the time line. Will it be The Atlantic or New Yorker? Place your bets folks!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:41 AM on May 13, 2011

24 hours news cycle. They gotten put *something* on the air, you know?

I suppose if I have to choose between "Miley Cyrus Flashes Papparazzi" and "Bin Laden listened to Frank Sinatra" I'll....

...um...

...sign offline and read a book.
posted by zarq at 10:45 AM on May 13, 2011

My favorite Bin Laden Update so far:

Bin Laden Drew the Line at Building Ford F-150 of Death
posted by rosswald at 10:45 AM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

Miley Cyrus Flashes Papparazzi

RELEASE THE PICTURES MR. PRESIDENT
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:47 AM on May 13, 2011

dhartung, No matter who is in office, the US is going to continue to have an enormous appetite for oil, and more generally and saliently, low commodity prices for oil, so we have a real, concrete, palpable national interest in stability where oil is produced.

Exactly!

Neocons intended that the US should pursue disruptive foreign policy...sometimes instability is an ally. In this sense, I'm not sure it's correct to say they had no idea what they were doing.

Exactly!

> Ya thunk tha him a being a born a in the Pashtun province has anything to do wit speakin Pashto, ah heHEAHell no

Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, OBL's courier, the one shot in the compound, was born and grew up in Kuwait, an Arab nation. The official language in Kuwait is Arabic, their second language is English. Pashto would not have been the language he grew up speaking. "As a speaker of Arabic and Pashto he could communicate and move easily among both the Arab members of al-Qaeda and the Pashtun tribesmen of Pakistan." His parents were Pakistani, so he could also speak Urdu, the language of the locals in Abbottabad (and Pakistan in general).

No idea how that is a muddy topic.

Ubu, Breaking news: Pakistani suicide bombers kill 80 other Pakistanis, in retailiation for the USA taking out a Saudi citizen.

The likelihood/possibility that the ISI was, in fact, in cahoots, with the US will not be easy for Pakistan. In a way it will force the Pakistani government to come down on their own people who have fallen under the influence of the extremist Taliban groups, that have spread from Afghanistan into Pakistan over the last couple of decades. A civil war of sorts, destabilizing the country. This will cause the Pakistan government to depend even more on the US military presence, which will anger the Taliban further. A nasty downward spiral there.

Who gives a shit, really?

This particular Bogeyman, OBL, has dominated the US culture for a decade. People are curious about far lesser cultural icons of all sorts, from Charlie Sheen to Lady Gaga, why wouldn't they be interested in and curious about OBL?
posted by nickyskye at 10:54 AM on May 13, 2011

nickyskye: " This particular Bogeyman, OBL, has dominated the US culture for a decade. People are curious about far lesser cultural icons of all sorts, from Charlie Sheen to Lady Gaga, why wouldn't they be interested in and curious about OBL?"

Curiosity is fine. What bothers me is this is lowest common denominator journalism. Plus I think it's likely that the gov't is stretching out the information being released in order to keep the news cycle centered on "Oh, did we mention? We killed Bin Laden."
posted by zarq at 11:00 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

MSNBC analysts said that some Navy Seals and others are fluent in Middle-Eastern languages.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were trained at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (Monterey, CA).
posted by ericb at 11:03 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Pakistan Army Chief Balks at U.S. Demands to Cooperate
posted by rosswald at 11:05 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm waiting for the 10,000 word, multi source article that describes the time line. Will it be The Atlantic or New Yorker?

My bet is on Seymour Hersch, The New Yorker, or Bob Woodward, Washington Post (as per above).
posted by ericb at 11:08 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Plus I think it's likely that the gov't is stretching out the information being released in order to keep the news cycle centered on "Oh, did we mention? We killed Bin Laden."

Nah, not so much, that's not really how it works. I mean, the government can't make the media care. They're just amassing piles of information to release at each daily briefing and electronically, in a pretty constant stream. The stream is constant all the time, not just when bin Laden gets captured, but that doesn't mean the media reports everything. They're selective about it, so most of the time you at the consumer end of news just don't even see the reams of content flowing out of DC.

The minutiae is getting into the news for one reason only: the bulk of broadcast news is advertising supported, and money can be made by keeping more eyeballs tuned in. They need something to put on the air just about all the time - even if it's nothing much at all.
posted by Miko at 11:10 AM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

But come on, that's funny. I would put it on the news too, if I were King.
posted by Miko at 11:12 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

How can you not think it's funny that a radical Islamist, or his presumably radical Islamist staff members, had a stash of porn?
posted by bardophile at 11:30 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

ericb, MSNBC analysts said that some Navy Seals and others are fluent in Middle-Eastern languages.

Yeah, but Pashto is not a Middle Eastern language, neither is Urdu, which would be the languages of the locals in Abbottabad. Pashto and Urdu are South Asian languages.

But man, that Defense Language Institute site you linked has some resources that rock.
posted by nickyskye at 11:33 AM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

...but Pashto is not a Middle Eastern language...

My mistake.
posted by ericb at 11:34 AM on May 13, 2011

Hopefully, I can find a video of that MSNBC segment.
posted by ericb at 11:34 AM on May 13, 2011

But man, that Defense Language Institute site you linked has some resources that rock.

Your tax dollars at work.
posted by Miko at 11:40 AM on May 13, 2011

If the Kuwaiti courier's parents were Pakistani Pathans, he would probably have grown up speaking Pashto as well as Urdu. Much of the Pakistani worker diaspora to the Middle East is from the NWFP.
posted by bardophile at 11:41 AM on May 13, 2011

How can you not think it's funny that a radical Islamist, or his presumably radical Islamist staff members, had a stash of porn?

It's about as surprising as finding out a rabidly anti gay Republican is actually homosexual.

With no tv and no internet in a compound, something's got to give.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:14 PM on May 13, 2011

But most people were able to take the time to let events unfold and thoroughly digest the gradually unfolding information and analysis that's becoming available, rather than build houses of cards, foster unfounded rumors, and clutter the information stream with some truly unreliable and farfetched content.

Miko, I think my doubts, speculations were entirely appropriate.

An hour after OBL's death was announced I received a call from a journalist in South America, worried that I would not be safe living in the Middle of NYC because of the expected Al Qaida retaliation to the media's portrayal. He expressed doubts that OBL had been killed. He said all that was on the news in his country were Americans yahooing it up over the news of OBL's death, like a drunken frat party.

I spent the next day talking with friends, neighbors, locals in the neighborhood in NYC about this, a variety of nationalities. And they ALL expressed doubts that OBL was dead in this raid. They ALL presumed it was a re-election ploy. And I live in a neighborhood that basically was/is very supportive of Obama, myself included.

A number of MeFites wrote me privately, supporting what I said in this thread or thinking along similar lines that the disclosure of the information by the US government has been consistently fishy. It's no wonder that Senators want to see photographs or the military advisors suggest putting the photographs of deaths up for all to see.

On the one hand there was this tantalizing information that the SEALs had helmet cams but, sorry folks, you US citizens, who paid with your tax dollars for the helmet cams, you're not going to see the evidence of the death of OBL, for whom you have forked over billions and billions of dollars for incursions into other countries, Iraq (about which motivation the US government has lied in the past), Afghanistan and now Pakistan.

Sticherbeast, So, basically, within hours of the announcement of OBL's death, the kill was confirmed by an AQ contact in an independent news agency.

Thanks for that.
posted by nickyskye at 12:21 PM on May 13, 2011

But, everyone I know is a conspiracy theorist!
posted by found missing at 12:32 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's about as surprising as finding out a rabidly anti gay Republican is actually homosexual.

'Unsurprising' and 'unfunny' don't mean the same thing to me.

Is there a culture in the US of being amused by the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed religious leaders? I ask because it's a real thread in Pakistani culture (not sure about other Muslim cultures, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was a common trope). Also, I believe there is a similar thread in Yiddish lore.

Maulvis have traditionally been made fun of as "halva eaters" and gluttons, in general, for one. Then there's the "maulvis who frequent winehouses" trope, and the "maulvis who frequent brothels or patronize prostitutes" trope. In recent years, there has been much talk of the maulvi having lost this aura of being the butt of jokes, and instead becoming creatures to be feared. I suppose I am partly amused because this harks back to those tropes, which I have always cherished.
posted by bardophile at 12:37 PM on May 13, 2011

...I think my doubts, speculations were entirely appropriate.

I think it's fine to doubt, especially after the horrible job the Obama administration did in releasing information. But the stuff you were coming up with was, to put it bluntly, loony as hell. Seriously

"Bin Laden wasn't killed in the raid, Bhutto said he was killed years ago" just isn't something to take seriously. Not a single shred of proof backed up her statement and she contradicted herself multiple times over years. To cling to that one statement just doesn't make sense.

Is there a culture in the US of being amused by the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed religious leaders?

Yes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:45 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

One went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. He was a Pakistani Pashtun who was born and grew up in Kuwait and spoke Pashto

Glad your paying attention, chasing down slanted data is weary work no. So he is a Kuwati... or a Pashtun? Why should I trust that data? How do I know? Was his family there on work visa? More questions to muddy the water. The obvious shifting of one slight piece of data, relevant though not pertinent is the problem here. The thesis you present is specious at best. Why, I through a low curve ball and you swung even when I presented false/ innaccurate data that does not have to be researched, just re-phrased.

KSM was also Kuwati but his family was from Pakistan, see the pattern emerging as to why OBL trusted this person. Trade craft would require OBL to trust in locals, those who knew the language and ways.
now i was snotty and i hope you see why, IMO, as i see, it is is measured response to what you are doing.

this will be the longest thread.
posted by clavdivs at 12:48 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

'Unsurprising' and 'unfunny' don't mean the same thing to me.

They usually do for me. It's more "predictably depressing" than funny. And I LOVE pornography.

Now I feel sad about all the crazy that the Michael Moore thread is leaching from this thread...

Wait, there's a whole thread for that link? Huh. I was just gonna post it here ... where it should go.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:52 PM on May 13, 2011

Thank God all that crazy went over there.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:56 PM on May 13, 2011

Brandon, Benazir was not the only one who expressed the idea that OBL was dead, or likely dead. So did veteran CIA officer Robert Baer and former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson.

Is there a culture in the US of being amused by the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed religious leaders?

Omg, the list of evangelist scandals is long and amusing. Like Jimmy Swaggart's sinning, Tammy Faye Baker and her ridiculous eye make-up? The Catholic priest pedos, not so amusing.

So interesting "Maulvis have traditionally been made fun of as "halva eaters" and gluttons, in general, for one"

Halva is pretty addictive stuff, heh. Do you think OBL would be ridiculed in Pakistan as one of the "maulvis who frequent brothels or patronize prostitutes" because of the alleged porn stash found in the compound with the Avena in the medicine cabinet?
posted by nickyskye at 1:04 PM on May 13, 2011

I don't begrudge people being skeptical, but it was frustrating that Bhutto's statement (or misstatement) was accepted with no evidence, and in fact in contradiction of evidence, whereas the development of OBL's actual death was treated with exaggerated scrutiny. It seemed as if OBL's recent death was problematic because it went against something you had believed for years, and not because there was anything all that exceptionally shady about it, especially since, in this case, the counterculture was wrong about OBL having died years ago and the powers that be were right about him having died in the raid.

On the other hand, why wouldn't have this time been weird? OBL's recent death conflicts with many base assumptions which would underlaid a narrative in which OBL had been dead for years, but other parties were either actively covering this up or colossally ignorant of this fact. It's weird how a sudden realization can throw things for a loop.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:04 PM on May 13, 2011

Dale Watson

lol
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:06 PM on May 13, 2011

Many people, even many reasonable people, thought that OBL was dead before he actually died. The thought had certainly passed though my mind at times. But hey, sometimes reasonable people are wrong about things. It happens. A lot.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:10 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Oh I'm familiar with the evangelist scandals. The thing that I'm referring to is more at the level of "the village priest," and I'm wondering if there is an equivalent "character" in American communities. So, just as "the village idiot" is a stock character, "the village maulvi" is a stock character. It's a poking fun from within, rather than outside of the maulvi's "sphere of influence." My experience of the evangelist scandals was that believers felt disillusioned and disappointed, whereas non-believers had reactions more along the lines of "predictably depressing."

I don't think he would be ridiculed in Pakistan for that reason by people who previously held him in high esteem, because they'll think that the news is additional false propaganda. There may be some jokes about it amongst liberals, but they never had any respect for him anyway.
posted by bardophile at 1:15 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Brandon, Benazir was not the only one who expressed the idea that OBL was dead, or likely dead. So did veteran CIA officer Robert Baer and former FBI head of counterterrorism Dale Watson.

1. The point was that you brought up and stuck to Bhutto's statement, which for the nth time now, didn't have a shred of proof behind it. Later, she contradicted that statement several times and those statements have been out for years. Yet you still stuck to what she said.

2. As to Robert Baer and Dale Watson, questions about them being reliable sources were brought up Wednesday. I pointed that out again yesterday. Yet here we are, with you completely ignoring the points that have made and repeating their names as proof of something. Yay, progress.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:21 PM on May 13, 2011

with exaggerated scrutiny

The US gov was the only source of the information about OBL's death. When the US invaded Iraq on the lie of weapons of mass destruction, really, whatever credibility they previously had was lost when it came to anything to do with countries that have oil potential business, which includes Afghanistan.

There were so many pieces of misinformation that came out, one after the other about this raid. The US gov is not that credible to me, unless backed up by journalists or authors I trust, who have other resources of information. That's why your link was to the other non-SITE source of confirmation by Al Qaida is meaningful to me and, in general, it's why I treasure the information from WikiLeaks.

Benazir was not all that credible either, by any means. But the fact that no reputable journalist or author denied the information or even explored it, that I knew about, seemed to actually validate the information.

The Greta van Susteren interview was unknown to me until this week. The fact she's connected with FOX news would automatically, imo, have invalidated ANYthing she had said. I never would have thought to turn to or trust FOX news for truth about anything. But in the interview Benazir said, in her own words, that OBL was alive. That also was weird, that that interview, invalidating what she said in the Al Jazeera/David Frost interview, was not talked about in the mainstream media.

Taliban leader details final visit with OBL.
posted by nickyskye at 1:24 PM on May 13, 2011

When the US invaded Iraq on the lie of weapons of mass destruction, really, whatever credibility they previously had was lost when it came to anything to do with countries that have oil potential business, which includes Afghanistan.

You do realize it was different administration, right? That doesn't make Obama automatically trustworthy, but saying "the US" as if it's the same people doing the same shit is kinda odd.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:27 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

A well placed OP could be mounted to facilitate the lie were OBL is dead. This would have to reach the intel people or fringe elements and not be circulated amongst the people.

so, one gets a tip he is dead at spot X, spooks come out to sniff, set up survallance. Al-Q or someone else may gain knowledge of allied intel capibilites. False Flag is considered the defintion but not quite, oh, PLAYBACK was the old term. This would help facilitate a PROBER.

so, through out OBL is dead, the intel checks it out, a PROBER gets a better snapshot for an exfiltration of OBL if needed.
posted by clavdivs at 1:29 PM on May 13, 2011

Obama Bin Spankin'
posted by nickyskye at 1:30 PM on May 13, 2011

Also, if ya'll have read Michael Moore's article, you should. It's actually quite good. The other Mefi thread is just getting het up a particular part of it, but overall, he's making some really great points, especially this one:

Perhaps there was no way to bring him back alive – I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that dark house trying to make that snap decision. But if the execution was ordered in advance, then I say we should be told that now, and we can like it or not like it.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:31 PM on May 13, 2011

Taliban leader details final visit with OBL.

Other then that Mr. Taliban, how did you like the compound?

BB. Mike is going to Mike.
Well he is right to some extent a pure execution would be not good, and as evidence it was not, drop in a 3 man sniper team, one round from a .50 cal and OBLs' torso would not be photographed due to lack of evidence.

6 minutes tops from rope to skid.
posted by clavdivs at 1:37 PM on May 13, 2011

Watching CNN a while ago, an analyst made the point about the conflicting details ... and the trickle of infos. He said it is quite common for "unnamed sources" in various government agencies to have access to information that is under review, etc. Many of these sources seek to leak tidbits to their press contacts, so as to maintain credibility and their contacts -- especially with such an historic event.

In other words, egos come into play.

As well, competing agencies sometimes want to "out do" each other. As such, to the public things appear in disarray -- and, indeed, they are. It's difficult for anyone (e.g. The White House) to keep the "lid on."

Like Brandon Blatcher, "I'm waiting for the 10,000 word, multi source article that describes the time line," especially after the wheat and chaff have been separated.
posted by ericb at 1:48 PM on May 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

Well he is right to some extent a pure execution would be not good, and as evidence it was not, drop in a 3 man sniper team, one round from a .50 cal and OBLs' torso would not be photographed due to lack of evidence.

Kinda hard to do with the privacy fence, especially at night.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:56 PM on May 13, 2011

But if the execution was ordered in advance, then I say we should be told that now, and we can like it or not like it.

I thought that the administration strongly said that the team was prepared to capture Bin Laden if possible, i.e. that it definitely was not an ordered execution.

Has anyone in the administration contradicted that?
posted by mrgrimm at 1:59 PM on May 13, 2011

Yet here we are, with you completely ignoring the points that have made and repeating their names as proof of something.

Brandon, Benazir's point was not negated by the mainstream press. At all. Ever. The only negation came by Benazir herself being interviewed by a FOX News journalist in an obscure interview that I'd never heard of. If it were generally known then why wasn't it possible to find that information easily on the web? If you google Greta Van Susteren interview with Benazir, it's not even mentioned in the links that Benazir invalidated her previous statement that OBL was dead. Even clicking on the main first link, nothing is mentioned that Benazir reversed her statement, one has to dredge for it.

Nobody in the West had solid proof that OBL was alive or dead. So please, stop with the nagging. And now that people want to see the proof, pics, videos, DNA results, whatever, it's not being shown by the US government. Really ridiculous that.

As for trusting politicians now more than before? No.

FarhanZafar8 tweet: US should have handed over #OBL's body to be buried and made shrine out of; So it can drone attacked when his followers visited! Dumbasses!
posted by nickyskye at 2:04 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Are we still talking about Benazir Bhutto? *sigh*
posted by koeselitz at 2:14 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not aware of anyone of the administration saying that, but articles similar to the one Michael Moore linked to have appeared. The argument is that since Bin Laden wasn't armed when he was killed, then obviously they were sent to execute him.

Faulty logic, IMO, but that's the argument.

Brandon, Benazir's point was not negated by the mainstream press. At all. Ever.

Do you believe everything a politician says that isn't refuted by the press?

I also "like" how you're completely ignoring what I said about you repeating Robert Baer and Dale Watson as reliable sources when several comments in this thread over the past two days have pointed out that it is so.

Nobody in the West had solid proof that OBL was alive or dead.

So...you chose to be believe the person who also had no proof and contradicted herself repeatedly on her statement? That doesn't make any sense.

So please, stop with the nagging.

You just went through a whole paragraph justifying why you originally believed Benazir, yet you want me stop "nagging?" If you want to drop it, then drop it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:24 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

But if the execution was ordered in advance, then I say we should be told that now, and we can like it or not like it.

I thought that the administration strongly said that the team was prepared to capture Bin Laden if possible, i.e. that it definitely was not an ordered execution.

Has anyone in the administration contradicted that?

Moore wants to see the Not an Execution certificate.

I especially like the bit where he makes it soooo clear that he's not armchair SEALing, oh no, but really wants to know if the president could make the kill or capture order a bit less killy.

TBH the main thing I get from his essay is, as with Chomsky, he's basically moaning about the same thing you lot are moaning about, and that's kind of disapointing, I'd expect a bit more originaility from the both of them.
posted by Artw at 2:30 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was not talking about Benazir. Brandon you keep dragging it up. ugh.

CIA officers in Pakistan questioned Bin Laden widows for about 30 minutes - CBS News

Why Islam took a violent and intolerant turn in Pakistan, and where it might lead: Some 30,000 people have been killed in the past four years in terrorism, sectarianism and army attacks on the terrorists.

Before the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, around a third of Pakistanis regarded Americans as untrustworthy. Since then, a fairly stable two-thirds have done so.
posted by nickyskye at 2:31 PM on May 13, 2011

I was not talking about Benazir. Brandon you keep dragging it up. ugh.

In that particular instance, yes that is true, no question.

If you're making a point how it's good to have doubts, which I can agree with, then my natural question is "why is ok to have doubts in this instance but not in this one?" So here we are.

Thanks for responding to my points about Robert Baer and Dale Watson.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:40 PM on May 13, 2011

Brandon, stop with the axe grinding.
posted by nickyskye at 2:47 PM on May 13, 2011

If you have a response about using Robert Baer and Dale Watson as reliable sources, feel free.

If you want to call that axe grinding, you're entitled to your opinion.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:58 PM on May 13, 2011

nickyskye: "Brandon, stop with the axe grinding."

It's not axe grinding.

Nickyskye, I have no dog in this fight.

But you keep bringing up Watson and Baer. After evidence was presented to you questioning whether they were valid sources, which you are clearly ignoring. When you keep bringing them up and asserting their validity, it's seems to me that it's perfectly reasonable for him to ask you to address what he raised two days ago.
posted by zarq at 3:00 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Brandon, stop with the axe grinding.

Said the axe grinder. Seriously, the best way to stop a conversation you don't like from happening is to stop being a part of it.
posted by scalefree at 3:01 PM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

scalefree: " Said the axe grinder. Seriously, the best way to stop a conversation you don't like from happening is to stop being a part of it."

You know, I also think it's reasonable for nickyskye to feel she's been subject to a pile-on in this thread. She's been polite and friendly, which cannot be said for everyone here.
posted by zarq at 3:09 PM on May 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

Let's look at this way: what are we going to resolve by discussing this further? By this time, we are all in agreement that OBL died recently. He's dead. Deady-dead-dead. Now what?
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:11 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

No tv and no internet make bin Laden something-something...
posted by darkstar at 3:15 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Besides, I think bin Laden was taken out by a creeper. Why else do you think he wasn't armed? He never heard it approach!

We must investigate creeper stealth technology!
posted by darkstar at 3:17 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Let's look at this way: what are we going to resolve by discussing this further?

What was the original post supposed to "resolve"?
posted by mrgrimm at 3:24 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe you all could take the meta conversation to metatalk.

No no, keep it here so we can beat the Sarah Palin thread!
posted by thirteenkiller at 3:29 PM on May 13, 2011 [4 favorites]

I was referring to the arguing over whether or not reasonable skepticism was employed in believing that OBL had died years ago as opposed to in the recent raid. Now that we all agree that OBL died in the recent raid, there isn't really much more to discuss on that point.

Let's move on and keep this about the ramifications and further developments and further porn caches of this story.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:30 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did they say what kind of porn it was? Because I'm praying something really outthere, just for laughs. "Busty Jewish Lesibans" or "Japanese octopi/furry customes".

Like Brandon Blatcher, "I'm waiting for the 10,000 word, multi source article that describes the time line," especially after the wheat and chaff have been separated.

There's probably a similar length article waiting to be written about the Obama administration go the details so wrong in those first few days.

But back this point of Michael Moore's:

Perhaps there was no way to bring him back alive – I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that dark house trying to make that snap decision. But if the execution was ordered in advance, then I say we should be told that now, and we can like it or not like it.

I agree and would like the Obama administration to be straight about this and I think to a large degree they have. Various members, includin CIA Director Leon Paentta and White House counterterrorism advisor John O. Brennan have said the SEAL team was authorized to kill, but could capture if possible. Yet the statements also make clear that they didn't believe capture was a strong possibility. There's a tone, IMO, of "Kill him if he so much as twitches." I'm ok with that and believe that such a sentiment is understandable concerning OBL from a sheer practical point. Who knew if had a suicide vest of what and I can't place the SEALs for not giving him the slightest chance to pull something.

But if this is change in our policy, it should be open and on the table. I don't think such a change heralds the death of America or freedom, but as nation we should have out eyes wide about what we're doing and why. Killing OBL is a no brainer. The next killing may not be so clear and we should take steps to not make it easy to do.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:55 PM on May 13, 2011

Let's move on and keep this about the ramifications and further developments and further porn caches of this story.

LOL, exactly!
posted by nickyskye at 4:06 PM on May 13, 2011

> Who knew if had a suicide vest

Such a svelte man first seen on a landing in underwear (apparently): just how slinky and throw-on are suicide vests these days?
posted by de at 4:14 PM on May 13, 2011 [3 favorites]

I don't know how slinky and throw-on suicide vests are these days. A quick look at Google makes me think it's possible to do something small, but doubtful. But I know nothing about explosives, so I could be totally wrong.

My overall point was that after the SEALs had seen him and fired at him but missed (according to some accounts), I don't blame them for shooting OBL if he didn't do anything but obviously surrender.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:36 PM on May 13, 2011

Perhaps it is ridiculous and supervillain-ish, but I would have assumed that he had the whole compound rigged to blow. Or at least had a way of quickly destroying all evidence/records.

And its not like he just moved in either. Though they didn't know it at the time, he had five years to set something up. Considering how well constructed his "sneaker-net" was, you would think he would have taken equal care to obfuscate the physical evidence should he need to. Especially if the journals and disks are as useful as some are claiming.
posted by rosswald at 4:59 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

It surely must say something about MeFi that its two longest discussion threads are about these two people.

One thread is about a hideous caricature of a boogeyman, a primitive theocrat who very nearly destroyed America, who has been lurking in a compound in the wilderness behind a massive privacy fence for years now, sending out missives periodically to issue ranting fatwas against political enemies, stirring up fanatical supporters to create mischief and mayhem against our liberal society.

The other thread, of course, is about Osama bin Laden.
posted by darkstar at 5:03 PM on May 13, 2011 [11 favorites]

> Perhaps it is ridiculous and supervillain-ish, but I would have assumed that he had the whole compound rigged to blow. Or at least had a way of quickly destroying all evidence/records.

That's the problem with working from home. There are the children to consider.
posted by de at 5:15 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Maybe it says something about me that I assumed he lived with lots of women and children as a shield. Part of the reason they did a raid was because it would have done irrevocable damage if pictures of dead children blown up by US in the middle of Pakistan were shown on TV.
posted by rosswald at 5:23 PM on May 13, 2011

I don't know how slinky and throw-on suicide vests are these days. A quick look at Google makes me think it's possible to do something small, but doubtful. But I know nothing about explosives, so I could be totally wrong.

I am not a suicide vest manufacturer, but my understanding is that explosives can pack a mean punch these days with minimal size, but all that gives is a blast. You need shrapnel to do real damage, which means that suicide vests are usually padded with heaps of nails & screws & bits of jagged metal & so on, which is where the bulk comes in. Presumably a suicide vest whose main aim is strictly that - suicide - could be very thin if needed.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:31 PM on May 13, 2011

@ReallyVirtual : Pornography and killing innocent people are both forbidden in Islam AFAIK - we don't need porn to highlight Osama's hypocrisy.

Well said.

4th drone attack in Pakistan's tribal areas since OBL killed: US drone strike 'kills three' in Pakistan

CNN: "I don't think the U.S. cares about the Pakistani sensibilities," said Bill Roggio, a military-affairs analyst. "I think it's game back on."

...Roggio said he believes the dynamics have changed after bin Laden was killed

Hindustan Times: Pakistan's ISI chief says he's willing to be held accountable for OBL raid.

Berating General Pasha: Pakistan's Spy Chief Gets a Tongue-Lashing

At that meeting, Pasha said, he had told Panetta that arrangements between the U.S. and Pakistan were all unwritten, and that he had said such a situation could not go on any longer.

Time mag: Why America is stuck with Pakistan

While Pakistan and the U.S. share similar long-term goals — economic partnership, stability in the region — their short-term needs rarely intersect.
posted by nickyskye at 5:31 PM on May 13, 2011

Presumably one could have shrapnel lying around in the room, close to oneself, without actually having it in the vest? Most suicide bombers need to carry it with them, but OBL was in his own home.
posted by bardophile at 5:33 PM on May 13, 2011

Yeah, but that would make cleaning & dusting the place a real chore.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:37 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Pornography would be a considerably lesser sin. I don't recall the Quran saying anything explicitly about it. The prohibition would come, I guess, by extrapolating from the modesty rules, and the ones restricting sexual intercourse.

The killing of innocents, it's very clear about. But you all knew that.
posted by bardophile at 5:38 PM on May 13, 2011

The prohibition would come, I guess, by extrapolating from the modesty rules, and the ones restricting sexual intercourse.

Islamic art has long had a prohibition against depictions of the human form, on the basis that it's a blasphemous & presumptuous usurping of Allah's role as the creator.

This prohibition was sometimes honoured more in the breach, in particular by the Umayyad caliphs and later by the Muslim rulers of Turkey, including the famous Suleyman the Magnificent. However, the Turks generally took pains to conceal their hidden artistic vices, and tried to maintain an image of piety notwithstanding these breaches.

It didn't always work, though, especially if the imagery became too public. Sultan Mahmud II went so far as to hang his portrait up in the Constantinople barracks, which resulted in a bloody uprising against this 'unclean' act, with the eventual result of 4,000 bodies being thrown into the sea.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:48 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

While Pakistan and the U.S. share [SOME] similar long-term goals — economic partnership, stability in the region — their short-term needs rarely intersect.

And from the same article.
"Pakistan is on Pakistan's side,"

Sigh. From his lips to God's ears.

That fear of India, in turn, explains Islamabad's quest for nuclear weapons, which was realized with a test in 1998.

Oh, India testing nuclear weapons might have had something to do with it, too...

"This is a golden opportunity for the civilian leadership to assert themselves," says Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general who has long campaigned to get the military out of government. But, he adds, "knowing their capabilities, in all likelihood they will not. And that is the tragedy of Pakistan."

This.

"My submission is that you don't have anyone else, so you might as well use us. Not by twisting our arm or accusing us. You know, do it nicely by sitting down with us and listening to our point of view."

Why doesn't that sound as pleasant as he intends it to?
posted by bardophile at 5:54 PM on May 13, 2011

Islamic art has long had a prohibition against depictions of the human form, on the basis that it's a blasphemous & presumptuous usurping of Allah's role as the creator.

Yeah, that would be another extrapolated principle that they might draw upon. No pun intended.
posted by bardophile at 5:57 PM on May 13, 2011

Kinda hard to do with the privacy fence, especially at night.

Declination sir, Declination.
posted by clavdivs at 6:32 PM on May 13, 2011

Perhaps it is ridiculous and supervillain-ish, but I would have assumed that he had the whole compound rigged to blow. Or at least had a way of quickly destroying all evidence/records.

I do wonder why he doesn't seem to have attempted to do anything like that. Supposedly they got his personal diary, which you'd think he'd at least have time to burn or something. Or maybe he had faith in the network and ideas he helped create and grow. Sure, the Americans might find information and others would be killed, operations destroyed, but you can't kill the idea. Indeed killing others might make it grow.

It's tough to say and I'm far from an expert on the man, the group. Islam or the region. But in the end I suspect he thought he could hide forever or close to it. He probably didn't think the Americans could literally show up on his doorstep. That had to be a hell of a surprise, US helicopters landing in the yard of his house in Pakistan, soldiers spilling out.

It will be interesting to hear what his wives say happened during the raid.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:59 PM on May 13, 2011

White House Announces End To Re-Enactments For News Photographers | Jason Reed of Reuters, who wrote about the re-enactment, "a little-known arrangement that fed suggestions of fakery when Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden."
posted by nickyskye at 8:14 PM on May 13, 2011

sneakernet
best tagline funny in this thread rosswald.

The Jerry Fletcher tinfoil evidence disposal:
Dangerous and could be detected by even a dog. Would you live in a house rigged to flash burn?

The ball point pen is a Czech detonator, you dirty american.
Again would you keep that much bang around? children and all.

OBL was a top down kind of fella. He had plans and gave orders. He did not take them and would not probably know how the current sausage was ground in it’s tactical detail.

no more re-enactments, CJ and Leo hated those.
posted by clavdivs at 8:18 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Frontline: Fighting For Bin Laden A special report -- in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, FRONTLINE takes you inside two fronts of the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban
posted by nickyskye at 8:26 PM on May 13, 2011

You know, it comes down to this: having doubts is good, but having doubts about doubts is even better. Best not to grow too fond of any scenario, offered by anyone, until you have a strong degree of confidence that you know something. Doubts are free; anyone can have them. In other words, like ericb, I'm waiting for the strong, multiply confirmed actual facts. You can't learn much from doubts, unless, like my high school psychology teacher always said, you put Descartes before the horse.
posted by Miko at 8:31 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm amazed how quickly this moment has left the consciousness of most people around me to be replaced by debate over Common reading poetry in the Whitehouse.

I guess it's partly the 24 hour news cycle, but it drives me crazy how a major event can happen, everyone jump on the OMG CONSPIRACY OMG bandwagon, and then entirely forget about it before the multiply confirmed actual facts Miko's waiting for.

Rachel Maddow said a thing about it that I like.
posted by nile_red at 10:54 PM on May 13, 2011

I do wonder why he doesn't seem to have attempted to do anything like that.

Well, I heard he wasn't even there. Been dead for years.
posted by inigo2 at 11:10 PM on May 13, 2011

I'm amazed how quickly this moment has left the consciousness of most people around me to be replaced by debate over Common reading poetry in the Whitehouse.

What debate? That was Palin plus cohorts complaining about a black man that complained about Bush, visiting the White House. There was zero "debate" there. Don't frame it otherwise.
posted by inigo2 at 11:12 PM on May 13, 2011

it drives me crazy how a major event can happen, everyone jump on the OMG CONSPIRACY OMG bandwagon, and then entirely forget about it before the multiply confirmed actual facts Miko's waiting for.

Which facts are you waiting for? Is Osama bin Laden dead? YES. Is Osama bin Laden dead as a result of this raid? YES. Does his family really give a fuck about bringing Osama bin Laden to justice? NO. Um... A bunch of people that think they're important enough to to get immediate information about a raid, giving information about said raid? Eh.
posted by inigo2 at 11:17 PM on May 13, 2011

Reagan had Frank over.
posted by clavdivs at 12:58 AM on May 14, 2011

The Waterboarding Trail to bin Laden
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:44 AM on May 14, 2011

Holy shit, that Mukasey article is so full of transparent lies... I can't even... what
posted by unSane at 5:25 AM on May 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I mean, really?

The Bush administration put these techniques in place only after rigorous analysis by the Justice Department, which concluded that they were lawful. Regrettably, that same administration gave them a name—"enhanced interrogation techniques"—so absurdly antiseptic as to imply that it must conceal something unlawful.

posted by unSane at 5:27 AM on May 14, 2011

Mukasey was Bush's monkey like Gonzalez before him and like Gonzalez should appear in a court of law on the other side from that to which he is accustomed.
posted by adamvasco at 5:46 AM on May 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

Worth reading: Slow Dance: Obama's Romance With the CIA
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:47 AM on May 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

Mukasey was Bush's monkey like Gonzalez before him and like Gonzalez should appear in a court of law on the other side from that to which he is accustomed.

Yes!

BUT. This is an article in the Wall Street Journal, a respected by some segment of the US populace. The article is presented as truth and it's the sort of crap that will be repeated ad nauseam in the coming years.

"The Attorney General of the United States said it was legal and helpful! How could he be wrong about that?!"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:29 AM on May 14, 2011

Brandon the WSJ belongs to Murdoch so basically its Fox news for the literate.
Meanwhile, The German Taliban; Business is still booming at Afghan and Pakistani terror camps. (via)
posted by adamvasco at 10:08 AM on May 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Business is still booming at Afghan and Pakistani terror camps.

A fire sale will be coming soon.
posted by clavdivs at 11:02 AM on May 14, 2011

Florida Men Accused of Aiding Pakistani Taliban

posted by rosswald at 6:08 PM on May 14, 2011

MSNBC video with Chris Matthews, mention of CIA psy-ops in discrediting OBL with the porn mention and Rep. Bob Brady said that in the death photographs OBL's beard was dyed black, which would seem to indicate he was going to make another video.
posted by nickyskye at 10:37 PM on May 14, 2011

CNBC's Dylan Radigan Show features a good rant from Mark Ames, on the hangover and amnesia surrounding OBL's death.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:56 AM on May 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

(Sidenote: I see Mark Ames has written a book which deals with Columbine. The discrepancies in the reporting of the OBL death story barely hold a candle to the misinformation and bad reporting that surrounded the reporting of the Columbine massacre.)
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:58 AM on May 15, 2011

nickyskye: MSNBC video with Chris Matthews, mention of CIA psy-ops in discrediting OBL with the porn mention...

I heard that they just found countless Terry Jones sermon videos on one of Bin Laden's computers, and that sometime this week they're gonna release a video taken from behind of a tall dark man with a grey beard tossing multiple copies of the Qur'an into a fire. With the audio removed, hopefully they're kind enough to surmise OBL's rantings about how Islam is the devil's religion.
posted by gman at 6:24 AM on May 15, 2011

MSNBC video with Chris Matthews, mention of CIA psy-ops in discrediting OBL with the porn mention

That was pure speculation on Matthews' part, he didn't mention a shred of proof in that statement. He implied that the CIA was implying it was Bin Laden's stash, put it's a bit of reach IMO. Most every report I've seen admits they aren't sure where the stash was stored or who it belonged to.

It's interesting to do a little tracing in how that information was reported and the differences. This ABC news story says the stash was in wooden box in Bin Laden's bedroom. Then it goes on to say Reuters first reported on the story (which Fox NEWS also says)and links to a Reuters story, which specifically says no one is sure where the porn stash was stored or who it belonged to. A story in the UK's The Independent says it sounds like spin doctoring. The LA Times notes "The story relies on unnamed government officials who have not released any other details or other evidence to back the claims."

It could be psy-ops. The unconfirmed reports do go nicely with images of Bin Laden watching tv. Or it could be people pointing and laughing at the supposedly ultra religious being caught with porn. I suspect the answer depends on already formed ideas in the individual.

All I really want to know are the porn titles and how newspapers deal with printing that bit of information.

The discrepancies in the reporting of the OBL death story barely hold a candle to the misinformation and bad reporting that surrounded the reporting of the Columbine massacre.

We were less wired then, which allowed rumors to stick.

We're more wired now, so it's easier to spread more rumors further and faster, allowing them to stick.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:52 AM on May 15, 2011

We're more wired now, so it's easier to spread more rumors further and faster, allowing them to stick.

that was rather erotic in a newstand sort of way
posted by clavdivs at 10:30 AM on May 15, 2011

> that was rather erotic in a newstand sort of way

but not nearly as erotic as that initial rush of SEAL-envy.
posted by de at 10:47 AM on May 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

In related news ...

Chicago trial could reveal Pakistan-militants link -- "Testimony might further strain relations with US ally."
posted by ericb at 2:53 PM on May 15, 2011

SEAL-envy

'seal envy' googles a massage parlor near a Bed Bath & beyond in Seal Beach. Very nice place.
posted by clavdivs at 6:35 PM on May 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

From the department of You Are Fscking Kidding Me: Disney trademarks Seal Team 6 for toys, games, movies, snow globes and Christmas stockings

Yes, it's a Daily Mail link, so I checked it myself:

Word Mark

SEAL TEAM 6

Goods and Services

IC 028. US 022 023 038 050. G & S: Toys, games and playthings; gymnastic and sporting articles (except clothing); hand-held units for playing electronic games other than those adapted for use with an external display screen or monitor; Christmas stockings; Christmas tree ornaments and decorations; snow globes

[...]
Filing Date May 3, 2011
[...]
Owner

(APPLICANT) Disney Enterprises, Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 500 South Buena Vista Street Burbank CALIFORNIA 91521

posted by Joe in Australia at 11:27 PM on May 15, 2011 [6 favorites]

Thisi isn't too surprising, though Disney doing it seem odd. Since the team isn't supposed to exist, I wonder if the Pentagon can and will doubletap this little project.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:09 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Joe, Disney trademarks Seal Team 6 for toys

Because nothing says Christmas spirit like an assassination.
posted by nickyskye at 5:31 AM on May 16, 2011 [3 favorites]

Better look out, better not cry.

Man, you should see what the HAMAS kids get.
posted by clavdivs at 5:49 AM on May 16, 2011

That smile looks deadlier than the gun
posted by rosswald at 6:26 AM on May 16, 2011

nickyskye writes "Because nothing says Christmas spirit like an assassination."

GI Joe makes a lot of money. And, of course, Disney doesn't just make products aimed at kids.
posted by Mitheral at 7:16 AM on May 16, 2011

Joe in Australia: "Disney trademarks "Seal Team 6" for toys, games, movies, snow globes and Christmas stockings"

It'll be for a Pixar movie about a group of actual seals who make their way from Antarctica to Pakistan. Along the way they have adventures, run from hunters wanting their fur and learn the true meaning of friendship. Then they murder bin Laden in cold blood and roll around making barking sounds.
posted by charred husk at 7:51 AM on May 16, 2011 [16 favorites]

If I know anything about Disney it will indeed be a team of animated seals. Well spotted.
posted by unSane at 10:31 AM on May 16, 2011

Pakistan to return U.S. helicopter tail, Kerry says.
posted by cashman at 1:09 PM on May 16, 2011

SEAL-mania grips US in wake of bin Laden raid.
posted by ericb at 1:37 PM on May 16, 2011

I hope the horns are tins.
Seal fact cards included with doll.

"Did you know that seals can grow beards and have long hair?"

"Jacques Cousteau helped develop the aqualung and rebreather."
posted by clavdivs at 3:07 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

"When it absolutely, positively must be destroyed overnight! Call in the US Navy SEALs."
posted by mrgrimm at 3:12 PM on May 16, 2011

Former top Afghan spy speaks out
posted by nickyskye at 3:52 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

From The Atlantic: The Cost of Bin Laden: $3 Trillion Over 15 Years

Defeating the Confederate army brought the end of slavery and a wave of standardization--in railroad gauges and shoe sizes, for example--that paved the way for a truly national economy. Vanquishing Adolf Hitler ended the Great Depression and ushered in a period of booming prosperity and hegemony. Even the massive military escalation that marked the Cold War standoff against Joseph Stalin and his Russian successors produced landmark technological breakthroughs that revolutionized the economy.

Perhaps the biggest economic silver lining from our bin Laden spending, if there is one, is the accelerated development of unmanned aircraft. That's our $3 trillion windfall, so far: Predator drones.

posted by Joe in Australia at 2:02 AM on May 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

That's some damn depressing shit, there, Joe.
posted by darkstar at 3:18 AM on May 17, 2011

It didn't cost $3 trillion to get Bin Laden. Anyone who says it did is just pushing an agenda.

The US didn't go into Afghanistan or Iraq solely to get Bin Laden. At best it was a side goal. That doesn't mean there wasn't some serious waste in there in terms of money and lives. But let's not pretend this was all about Bin Laden.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:26 AM on May 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Navy Times: lots of new details on Osama Bin Laden raid
posted by msalt at 6:50 AM on May 17, 2011

Re: lots of new details on Osama Bin Laden raid

As three of the SEALs reached the top of the steps on the third floor, they saw bin Laden standing at the end of the hall. The Americans recognized him instantly, the officials said.

Bin Laden also saw them, dimly outlined in the dark house, and ducked into his room.

The three SEALs assumed he was going for a weapon, and one by one they rushed after him through the door, one official described.

Two women were in front of bin Laden, yelling and trying to protect him, two officials said. The first SEAL grabbed the two women and shoved them away, fearing they might be wearing suicide bomb vests, they said.

The SEAL behind him opened fire at bin Laden, putting one bullet in his chest, and one in his head.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

Back at the White House Situation Room, word was relayed that bin Laden had been found, signaled by the code word “Geronimo.” That was not bin Laden’s code name, but rather a representation of the letter “G.” Each step of the mission was labeled alphabetically, and “Geronimo” meant that the raiders had reached step “G,” the killing or capture of bin Laden, two officials said.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:05 AM on May 17, 2011

And now there's been a shooting incident between a NATO helicopter and a Pakistani border post.
posted by warbaby at 7:16 AM on May 17, 2011

Msalt: that's a much more detailed story, and it absolutely might be the truth, but it's yet another anonymous source that partially supports and partially contradicts other anonymous sources. It's by far the best, but they're getting tiresome.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:13 AM on May 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

let's not pretend this was all about Bin Laden

Let's also not pretend it wasn't. The U.S. would not be in Afghanistan if Osama Bin Laden was not credited with the WTC/Pentagon bombings.

The bombers and planners were Saudis living in Europe and American. The U.S. had little problem with the Taliban before 9/11/01.

The main reason the U.S. got in Afghanistan and Iraq was Osama Bin Laden. Now that they are there, they are just taking advantage.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:21 AM on May 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

At best it was a side goal.

At best you can say that with a straight face.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:22 AM on May 17, 2011

Less than a week left for the government to reply to the FOIA request. WSJ, Atlantic, Reuters.
posted by cashman at 10:49 AM on May 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

The main reason the U.S. got in Afghanistan and Iraq was Osama Bin Laden.

Iraq? Seriously? That was true only in Neocon fever dreams, and the nightmares of the unusually gullible.
posted by aramaic at 11:08 AM on May 17, 2011

Afghanistan was invaded to deny it as a "safe-haven" for terrorists. The goal is/was really to create a stable Afghanistan with a government friendly enough with US to kick out terrorists.
posted by rosswald at 11:36 AM on May 17, 2011

The main reason the U.S. got in Afghanistan and Iraq was Osama Bin Laden

and what does that have to do with the $3 trillion? Your train has fallen off the tracks.
posted by caddis at 11:38 AM on May 17, 2011

and what does that have to do with the $3 trillion? Your train has fallen off the tracks.

I don't give 2 shits about $3 trillion. It's not my train. Somebody implied Afghanistan is not "all about Bin Laden" and I say that's pretty fucking stupid.

You honestly believe that killing Osama Bin Laden was a "side goal" of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan? Nonsense. Mission accomplished, bro.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:46 PM on May 17, 2011

So do you seriously think we spent $3 trillion solely to kill Bin Laden?

Perhaps the problems lays in semantics, such as "side goal" or "all about." As I remember it, the goal was to bring down the Taliban because they harbored Bin Laden and might continue to provide safe haven to Al Qaeda. Getting the one man was an important goal but not the only goal. The main goal was to eliminate a state sponsored safe haven for Al Qaeda. Don't even get me started on "mission accomplished." Anyway, the statement above about spending $3 trillion to kill one man is at best misleading.

Just for some perspective, here is the official statement from GW about the invasion (not that he is necessarily to be trusted, but at least these are the "official" reasons):

Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.

...

More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps; hand over leaders of the al Qaeda network; and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay a price. By destroying camps and disrupting communications, we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans....

posted by caddis at 1:49 PM on May 17, 2011

Anyway, the statement above about spending $3 trillion to kill one man is at best misleading.

How about $3 trillion to avenge 9/11? More accurate?
posted by mrgrimm at 2:36 PM on May 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Imagining how many of you in this thread might appreciate something from RT and controversial :) Osama Bin Laden cheated the gallows and died five years before US security forces officially announced he was killed, says a former CIA agent, currently living in Turkey.
“I knew Bin Laden’s Chechen guards very well,”
posted by nickyskye at 3:39 PM on May 17, 2011

I know a guy who said that bin Laden was never a real person, but was in fact a fictitious character created and played by Joaquin Phoenix as an elaborate hoax.

nickyskye, you may quote me on that on internet forums
posted by found missing at 4:25 PM on May 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Caddis wrote: So do you seriously think we spent $3 trillion solely to kill Bin Laden?

The article doesn't claim that. What it claims is that the USA spent $3 trillion because of bin Laden. I'm not at all sure that this is true - I think the USA had other goals in invading Iraq, primarily ensuring the security of its oil supply - but that still leaves nearly $2 trillion, and rising, as a consequence of one man's strategy to defeat the USA. It's extraordinary and irrational and self-destructive.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:47 PM on May 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought the Chechen touch in the story was amusing.
posted by nickyskye at 4:48 PM on May 17, 2011

> And now there's been a shooting incident between a NATO helicopter and a Pakistani border post.

Is anyone surprised?

Reason it how you will. Three trillion dollars, on a decade long war against evil (for goodness sake!), has to make you think, no?

Harking back:

> The refusal of the US to subject itself to the ICC and only conditionally to the ICJ is something that the US is widely criticized for in the ~~Muslim~~ world.

Apart from debt, what else does the US export? Showing pictures of its aggressive travels may not be who USians are but it is what USians do.

Hard love: The US needs help, not compliant allies.
posted by de at 5:12 PM on May 17, 2011

Osama Bin Laden cheated the gallows and died five years before US security forces officially announced he was killed, says a former CIA agent, currently living in Turkey.

Oh, it goes even deeper than that, nickyskye, Barack Obama is a CIA plant! (I just thought you might appreciate that. Dr. Kate seems up your alley :))
posted by octobersurprise at 7:31 PM on May 17, 2011

Three trillion dollars, on a decade long war against evil (for goodness sake!), has to make you think, no?

Dude, we spend roughly 650$ billion a year on defense. Your 3 trillion is way under the mark.

Hard love: The US needs help, not compliant allies.

If we ever need your help, we will ask.

complaint allies, have you read a paper lately?

Apart from debt, what else does the US export?

great fucking weapons and the courage to use them any time.

(that was my Hudson improv from Aliens)
posted by clavdivs at 8:17 PM on May 17, 2011

Interesting Washington Post piece about new stealth drones used by the CIA in the OBL compound surveillance.
posted by nickyskye at 8:28 PM on May 17, 2011

Osama Bin Laden cheated the gallows and died five years before US security forces officially announced he was killed, says a former CIA agent, currently living in Turkey.

Says a guy whose own resume impeaches him, to a source of questionable reputation. A guy who hung out with bin Laden but couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone to tell his old bosses about it wants us to listen to him now? Even assuming he means "agent" in the strict sense of an asset being run by a case officer rather than the colloquial sense of CIA field/case officer, it calls his story into serious doubt. Put up against the vast stack of evidence supporting the recent kill, it's a no-brainer which theory wins.

Your Occam's Razor needs some serious sharpening.
posted by scalefree at 11:08 PM on May 17, 2011

What's wrong with this picture? Bin Laden prayer request riles Florida church
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:44 AM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Heikal speaks to Al-Ahram on Mubarak, Obama and Bin Laden. Scroll down for the OBL part.
posted by nickyskye at 6:47 AM on May 18, 2011

How about $3 trillion to avenge 9/11? More accurate?

I'd have to say no.

$3 trillion was spent to try and deal with terrorism in general, along with specific terrorist groups and of course Bin Laden. Killing him was never the goal in the sense of "Hey, once we do that, things are done." It was more of of "ok, we're working on that, in the meantime there's this other stuff we want to do."

Supposedly they found a ton of information in the compound. It remains to seen how useful that information will be and whether its value is quantifiable in a monetary sense.

None of the above should be taken as being happy with that $3 trillion being spent the way it was. Just disagree that it was all about Bin Laden.

Scroll down for the OBL part.

Mind you, he doesn't show any proof of what's saying, that Bin Laden had kidney problems and that's why he has been in one place in Pakistan for all these years.

Of course, there's the previous link you posted, nickyskye, where Bin Laden's bodyguard says he didn't have kidney problems.

Not hearing you say much about not trusting the conflicting stories here, yet the US government's variations seem to be cause for alarm, if I'm understanding you correctly.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:04 AM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

$3 trillion was spent to try and deal with terrorism in general, along with specific terrorist groups and of course Bin Laden. Killing him was never the goal in the sense of "Hey, once we do that, things are done." It was more of of "ok, we're working on that, in the meantime there's this other stuff we want to do."

But how much of that $3 trillion would have been spent if 9/11 did not happen? 0.1%?

If you credit Bin Laden with the WTC/Pentagon attacks, you could certainly make the case that Afghanistan and Iraq were indeed actually "all about Bin Laden." If the U.S. had not been bombed on 9/11, the case for invasion of Iraq was essentially a non-starter.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:18 AM on May 18, 2011

I would make the opposite claim:

Obviously Bush and Company had plans for Iraq, independent of 9/11 or Afghanistan or anything else.

Obviously 'alternate history' is a futile effort, but I feel like 9/11 only expedited Iraq, and didn't cause it.
posted by rosswald at 10:44 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obviously I need to re-check my word choice before posting
posted by rosswald at 10:45 AM on May 18, 2011

But how much of that $3 trillion would have been spent if 9/11 did not happen? 0.1%?

Something like that, but that doesn't mean $3 trillion was spent to get Bin Laden specifically or "avenge 9/11".

It's probably schematics we're disagreeing on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:06 AM on May 18, 2011

The bulletproof dog that stormed bin Laden's lair -- "Thanks to extensive training — and customized body armor that can cost upward of $30,000 — this canine is bulletproof, can hear through concrete and can record high-def video of missions, even in the dead of night."
posted by ericb at 11:07 AM on May 18, 2011

I hope they named him Dogmeat. Tradition, you know.
posted by Justinian at 11:43 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Come on people, only 1240 more comments to go and Bin Laden will officially be more evil than Palin.
posted by gman at 6:27 PM on May 18, 2011

Yeah, but Bin Laden was at least smart and dedicated. Can you imagine Palin holing up in a house for 5-6 years? She'd go nuts from the lack of drama and active attention.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:34 PM on May 18, 2011

Well, on the other hand, Sarah Palin has killed an awfully low number of people. Advantage Palin.
posted by Kattullus at 6:53 PM on May 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

> Can you imagine Palin holing up in a house for 5-6 years?

Yes, I can. A big Whitehouse. A few years back I was forced to do just that. It was terrifying.
posted by de at 7:00 PM on May 18, 2011

Well, on the other hand, Sarah Palin has killed an awfully low number of people. Advantage Palin.

Yes, it's true, Sarah Palin is waaaaay better than Bin Laden. Part of the reason is that she's dumber.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:04 PM on May 18, 2011

> Part of the reason is that she's dumber.

and I bet she's into porn and hiding behind old men, too.
posted by de at 7:10 PM on May 18, 2011

Can we at least agree that Palin is the Bin Laden of Mooses?
posted by rosswald at 8:40 PM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, on the other hand, Sarah Palin has killed an awfully low number of people. Advantage Palin.

Can we at least agree that Palin is the Bin Laden of Mooses?

Also wolves!
And submarines!
And she shoots from helicopters! Hunting with Palin.
posted by misha at 9:07 PM on May 18, 2011

US killed Bin Laden clone in Pakistan

IRIB English Radio has reported that the US actually killed bin Laden in 2001, based on an interview with Gordon Duff, senior editor of Ohio-based Veterans Today. I haven't actually read anything on the site, but with a name like that it seems very credible. And it's in Ohio, of course, which is not a place given to exaggeration.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:44 PM on May 18, 2011

Also wolves!
And submarines!
And she shoots from helicopters! Hunting with Palin.

I say this every time it comes up but Aerial Wolf Gunning needs to be a videogame YESTERDAY. It's like mashup of Big Buck Hunter and LA Machineguns.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 10:52 PM on May 18, 2011

Don't look now, but....
posted by cashman at 5:18 AM on May 19, 2011

IRIB English Radio has reported that the US actually killed bin Laden in 2001, based on an interview with Gordon Duff, senior editor of Ohio-based Veterans Today. I haven't actually read anything on the site, but with a name like that it seems very credible. And it's in Ohio, of course, which is not a place given to exaggeration.

And they have the most famous girl on the internet on their site, a ringing endorsement if ever I've seen one.
posted by TedW at 6:26 AM on May 19, 2011

So OBL would have to have been cloned in the 50s, in the foreknowledge that said clone would be useful. Man, those CIA guys are really smart.
posted by unSane at 7:46 AM on May 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

Meghan McCain: "Rick Santorum telling my father doesn't know about torture is like Carrot Top telling Lebron James he doesn't know about basketball."
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:53 AM on May 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

... an interview with Gordon Duff

Whoo-boy.

Do a Google search on "Gordon Duff" and you can see his crazy conspiracy theories related to 9/11, Israel, Wikileaks, ICBM missile test out of L.A. to scare China, etc. At Randi.org they even question whether he was really in the military.

Another wacko, if you ask me.

Gordon Duff, senior editor at Veterans Today, offers a sweeping view of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the WikiLeaks saga, and the events of 9/11. Duff, a Marine veteran of Viet Nam, claims intelligence sources worldwide, especially in Pakistan. He asserts that most events called “terrorism” are false flag events, that Israel’s Mossad is in control of much of the disinformation in circulation today, that bin Laden has been dead for years, that all top officials of the Federal Reserve are dual citizens with “Israeli passports in their dresser drawers next to the marijuana”, that North Korea’s submarines and the nuke they tested came from Israel, and that the WikiLeaks leaks were orchestrated in Tel Aviv. He also has a very different view of Pakistan’s ISI and the insurgents lumped together as the “Taliban”.*

posted by ericb at 8:52 AM on May 19, 2011

Again with "Jews run everything" ?! The CRaZY® should try to be more original.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:59 AM on May 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

OBL's Arab Spring finally tape drops.

OBL's ultimate irrelevancy is here brought again to light: he's just praising people who actually took a stand against their own corrupt governments, without his help or methods.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:00 AM on May 19, 2011

thanks ericb for the links. (he is the link king, he is the update...)
posted by clavdivs at 9:14 AM on May 19, 2011

I haven't actually read anything on the site, but with a name like that it seems very credible.

I'm honestly not trying to be snarky, but if this is the level of critical evaluation we're applying, it's no wonder this thread has been so long.
posted by Miko at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2011

Meghan McCain: "Rick Santorum telling my father doesn't know about torture is like Carrot Top telling Lebron James he doesn't know about basketball."

By far my favorite thing about that is her followup tweet:

"I mean no offense to Carrot Top, by the way."
posted by dersins at 9:19 AM on May 19, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm honestly not trying to be snarky, but if this is the level of critical evaluation we're applying, it's no wonder this thread has been so long.

I'm pretty sure Joe was being facetious.

Pretty sure.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:23 AM on May 19, 2011

That is entirely possible.
posted by Miko at 9:31 AM on May 19, 2011

I'm pretty sure Joe was being facetious.
Pretty sure.

I feel the same way, but damn it can be kind of tough to discern whether the 32nd ranty, crazypants conspiracy-theory-laden comment someone makes in a thread is just like the first 31, or is supposed to be satirizing them.
posted by dersins at 9:31 AM on May 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Dersins, didn't you do an internship at the CIA?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2011

He can't talk about it.
posted by ericb at 10:01 AM on May 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

...but there's no law saying he can't sing about it...
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:03 AM on May 19, 2011 [4 favorites]

...or do an interpretive dance...
posted by rtha at 10:30 AM on May 19, 2011

Actually in a certain class in a certain building in a certain part of Virginia they taught us to encode critical intel using a poultry-based semaphore system. Check profile for spot report on thread #103068 vs. thread # 74487.

I fear I've said too much.
posted by dersins at 11:14 AM on May 19, 2011

dershins, dial Davenport-771, Ext. 16: Department of Pre-Details, thank you.
Seantor K@@@@ office called, he wants to know he can go back into the room
posted by clavdivs at 1:57 PM on May 19, 2011

Cancel that last command, Sitting Bull is in the kitchen, repeat Sitting Bull is in the kitchen.

Seriously, he is. We've cloned him and he's cooking up a mess of tamales right now, you gotta see this!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:22 PM on May 19, 2011

Wait, is this thing on?

Goddamn it!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:25 PM on May 19, 2011

unSane wrote: So OBL would have to have been cloned in the 50s, in the foreknowledge that said clone would be useful. Man, those CIA guys are really smart.

Sigh. Look, why did we never get to see pictures of the body? Because the body was of a teenaged clone. And why was it dropped over the side of a ship? To stop us DNA testing it and realising that it wasn't Osama bin Laden!

Did you wonder how a skilled helicopter pilot could have crashed and why the helicopter tail was oh-so-conveniently left behind when they allegedly destroyed the rest of it? I don't want Google to pick up on this so I've encoded the answer: Erethay ereway onay elicoptershay. Ethay "ailtay" asway away ockmay-upway ademay ybay Akistanipay intelligenceway otay oolfay ethay esspray. Eelswhay ithinway eelswhay!
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:40 PM on May 19, 2011 [2 favorites]

Despite never having needed it before today I'm extremely disappointed in the makers of 'Leet key for not including pig latin transcoders. Here's is a 'Leet key friendly encryption in 'leet: 7h3r3 w3r3 n0 h3|1(0p73r5. 7h3 741| w45 4 m0(k up m4d3 8y p4k1574n1 1n73||163n(3 70 f00| 7h3 pr355. wh33|5 w17h1n wh33|5!
posted by Mitheral at 4:19 PM on May 19, 2011

Another speech: Obama on the Middle East & North Africa.
posted by unliteral at 5:05 PM on May 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

"What ails Imran Khan," an analysis of why the only Pakistani political leader who hasn't been written off as irrevocably corrupt is unlikely to ever become a major player in Pakistani politics.
posted by bardophile at 12:27 AM on May 20, 2011

WikiLeaks' The Pakistan Papers
posted by nickyskye at 6:27 AM on May 20, 2011

What if a zombie, vampire and werewolf bit Bin Laden at the same time?

You know, back when he was alive.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:08 PM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

On bin Laden's Lingering Smile ...
posted by Rumple at 10:26 PM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

What if a zombie, vampire and werewolf bit Bin Laden at the same time?

they'd all falafel

*cymbal crash*
posted by pyramid termite at 10:06 AM on May 21, 2011 [3 favorites]

oy vey
posted by clavdivs at 10:21 AM on May 21, 2011

Video: An insight into Osama bin Laden's life through the eyes of people who knew him and met him.
posted by nickyskye at 2:16 PM on May 21, 2011

Interesting. I like the description of him as being quiet and yet speaking like a uncle. There's a vague feeling (or is just me) that he just a person looking for a cause, whether he knew it or not. Quiet, introspective, smart and interested in religion, almost seems like he was going to end up somewhere, doing something. Just a question of whether it would be good or bad.

I wonder how the bad kidney's rumor started.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:24 PM on May 21, 2011

Hi everybody, I know I'm late. Is this the Sarah Palin thread?
posted by The pets.com Mascot at 4:24 AM on May 22, 2011

> On Dec. 8, 1998, NBC News reported that bin Laden had only "months to live," explaining that he was suffering from heart problems and possibly cancer [2d] . Oops.

Osama lived in Haripur before moving to Abbottabad

Osama’s Yemeni wife told investigators that he had undergone two kidney surgeries in Afghanistan’s south-western Kandahar province during Taliban regime and had recovered thereafter, using homemade medications including water melons.

one of the three widows in Pakistani custody.

“Imagine, this guy was living in our midst in Haripur and Abbottabad for seven and a half years and we all, both Pakistanis and
Americans, had been looking for him in the wrong direction,” one official remarked.

Interestingly enough, Umar Patek, an Indonesian involved in the Bali bombing of 2002, was also arrested from Malikpura, Abbottabad. Indonesian authorities are now saying that Patek, arrested by a Pakistani intelligence agency in March, wanted to meet Osama bin Laden not far from where the Al Qaeda leader lived.

The land in Bilal Town [Abbottabad], said a government official, was bought by Mohammad Arshad on Jan 22, 2004

Incidentally, the official said, OBL’s son, who was also killed in action along with his father, was married to one of the sisters of Shangla brothers. Those children lived alongside the children and grandchildren of Osama bin Laden.

The Shangla brothers, the official added, were the two other men killed in Operation Geronimo.

Amongst those left behind by the evacuating Navy Seals were Osama’s three wives, two of them highly educated Saudis, his elder son and four children of a daughter who was killed in a drone strike in Waziristan, the officials said.
posted by nickyskye at 10:06 AM on May 22, 2011

Militants attack naval installation in Karachi.
posted by bardophile at 2:46 PM on May 22, 2011

Mumbai terror attack: US trial puts Pakistan spy agency in the dock. Star witness David Headley set to claim ISI helped Lashkar-e-Taiba extremists carry out 2008 Mumbai massacre
posted by homunculus at 5:11 PM on May 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

...and the hits just keep on coming.
posted by bardophile at 5:15 PM on May 22, 2011

So the photos are not coming out any time soon. The FOIA request has basically been shelved.

The AP had asked that the Defense Department quickly consider its request under a legal provision known as expedited processing, which dramatically shortens the amount of time the government takes in such cases. Without expedited processing, requests for sensitive materials can be delayed for months and even years. The AP submitted its request to the Pentagon less than one day after bin Laden's death.

The Defense Department last week refused AP's request for a speedy review. It said the AP failed to demonstrate an urgent or compelling need to review the records or show that the information has a particular value that would be lost if not provided in an expedited manner.

The AP has appealed, but I think that's about all we'll hear about this for a long long time.
posted by cashman at 5:19 PM on May 22, 2011 [2 favorites]

In a characteristically constructive move, the Punjab government has cancelled six US Aid agreements pertaining to the incredibly unimportant fields of education, health, and solid waste management. This is a protest against the Abbottabad raid, according to the Punjab law minister. (Punjab is Pakistan's most populous province. The provincial government is headed by the main opposition party to Zardari/Bhutto's PPP, the Pakistan Muslim Leage (Nawaz Group).

While my feelings about US Aid programs are mixed, I find it fascinating that a government would choose to cancel *these* programs, rather than reducing our dependence on military aid. Sadly unsurprising, but interesting nevertheless.
posted by bardophile at 12:57 AM on May 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

From a friend: "There’s a 9/11, 26/11 and 7/7. Then there’s almost every day in Pakistan..."
posted by bardophile at 3:45 AM on May 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

: /

That is a depressing sentiment bardophile
posted by rosswald at 6:59 AM on May 23, 2011

Taliban's Mullah Omar reported dead, reports conflicting.
posted by EarBucket at 7:42 AM on May 23, 2011

Taliban is denying it.
posted by EarBucket at 7:44 AM on May 23, 2011

I bet he threw a pet group at the troops attacking him while firing 23 machine guns at once. Upside down.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:44 AM on May 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Then there’s almost every day in Pakistan...

and why is that, americans cannot be blamed for this, so why?

Now that the tinfoil crowd is gone, perhaps some real questions can be asked.
posted by clavdivs at 9:33 AM on May 23, 2011

> americans cannot be blamed for this

yes you can.
posted by de at 1:25 PM on May 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

There’s a 9/11, 26/11 and 7/7. Then there’s almost every day in Pakistan...

My god, three thousand Pakistanis are being killed by terrorists every day? Holy crap, you'd think the ISI would do something about it!
posted by aramaic at 4:45 PM on May 23, 2011

(Reuters) - No evidence of specific or imminent threats has emerged yet from material confiscated from Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout, Western counter-terrorism officials said, raising questions about how directly he was in control of al Qaeda.

Sethi: Pakistani media challenging military

India, Russia bond over Afghan concerns This also explains why New Delhi and Moscow are fiercely opposed to the withdrawal of western troops from Afghanistan as they dread the ascendance and re-emergence Taliban-allied radical Islamist network in the region.

TAPI pipeline project: Countries reach agreement on gas price | ISLAMABAD, May 16 (APP): Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has stressed on speeding up exploration of oil and gas in the country to bridge the gap between demand and supply. | TAPI is being pushed by the US as an alternative to the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, while the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the Lead Development Partner of the project. | Russian gas monopoly Gazprom could join a pipeline project meant to deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to India |

(Reuters) - After bin Laden, U.S. reopens Afghan, Pakistan strategy
posted by nickyskye at 4:50 PM on May 23, 2011

> americans cannot be blamed for this

yes you can.

no, you can't.

Before the West invaded Afghanistan my country had no suicide bombers, no jihad and no Talibanisation.

-Imran Khan.

wow mr. khan.
In 1987, 90% of the worlds 777 terrorist incidents recorded took place in Pakistan. Here are some.

July 5: A bomb blast in Lahore railroad station, following to Badami bus station, Lahore, Pakistan, which kills 10 and injures 50.

July 15: A huge bomb blast by bomb, where damage on Raja Ghazanfar Ali Road and Syedna Burhanuddin Street area, with many vehicles and shops are damaged, which kills 72 and injures 250.

September 15: A bomb blast in Kababyan Market area, Peshawar, Pakistan, with three shops and many vehicles damaged, kills 10 and injures 37.

September 20: A bomb blast in Raja bazaar area, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where 15 shops, telephone exchange center and many vehicles damaged, kills 10 and injures 40.

for 2000.

A powerful explosive device detonated in front of a sugarcane juice shop in Karachi. At least eight people were killed in the blast and 14 injured. Al-Nawaz claimed responsibility for the blast. In their statement of claim, the group writes, "we will continue spreading the intense fear as a protest against the hijacking of our favorite leader Mohammad Nawaz Sharif's elected government."

At least two people were killed and seven others were injured in a bomb explosion that took place at a mosque in Qayumbad. The blast took place during prayers. The premises was slightly damaged by the attack.

Four people were injured in a bomb that went off at a hotel. The blasts come one day after Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Lahore A bomb planted on a fruit crate exploded in Medina Chowk, a large bus terminal in Lahore. The site of the blast is congregated by bus passengers. At least sixteen people were injured by the device.

Lahore Over a dozen were injured when a bomb went off in front of a cigarette kiosk at Badami general bus stand in Lahore.

Rawalpindi A bomb went off in Rawalpindi injuring five people. The explosion went off in a hotel in Raja Bazaar.

Three quick succession bomb blasts injured 11 people in Quetta, Pakistan.

Bomb in Quetta kills six and wounds 22.

A bomb exploded in a crowded bus station. The blast took place on a bus bound for Faisalabad. Three people were killed and several others wounded.

A deadly bomb explosion at a vegetable market left nineteen dead and many injured.

A bomb detonated at the Raja Bazar injured twenty-six people. According to police the Taliban's Northern Alliance may have joined forces with India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom
heheheh, i thought putin broke that up.
posted by clavdivs at 6:50 PM on May 23, 2011

We never had suicide bombings in our history until 2004.

On May 8, 2002, a man driving a car bomb stopped next to a bus in Karachi outside the Sheraton Hotel. He detonated the car, ripping the bus apart, and killing himself, 11 Frenchmen, and two Pakistanis. The 11 Frenchmen were engineers working with Pakistan to design an Agosta 90B class submarine for the Pakistani Navy. About 40 others were wounded.[1]

ok de, I just have shown you pretty good evidence that Mr. Khan is lying or mistaken.

still want to stick to mr. khans article?
posted by clavdivs at 7:17 PM on May 23, 2011

no jihad Mr. Khan?
well here is another suicide attack

12:01AM GMT 18 Mar 2002

"AN American schoolgirl and her mother were among five people killed yesterday when a suspected Islamic militant carried out a suicide attack on a crowded church in the diplomatic district of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad."
posted by clavdivs at 7:31 PM on May 23, 2011

heavens no clavdivs, i'm sorry for implying americans have a tendency to export war on such little evidence. i'm sorry.
posted by de at 8:03 PM on May 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Given terrorism is Pakistan's top export it is no surprise that local producers have largely cornered the domestic market as well. Even without punitive tariffs how do you compete with manufacturers that have been in the business for 30+ years and have a virtual monopoly?
posted by Meatbomb at 8:21 PM on May 23, 2011

Given terrorism is Pakistan's top export

Interesting who supplies the arms for that exported product.

> Over 80% of Pakistani exports to the United States are cotton products, while Pakistan's fastest growing imports from the U.S. include military guns, tanks & missiles.
posted by nickyskye at 8:44 PM on May 23, 2011

aramaic: No, of course 3000 people aren't killed every day in terrorist attacks. And perhaps you understand that it was hyperbole and are simply engaging in some some. I'm sorry if I'm a little too emotionally invested to be able to figure that out. The point my friend was making that terrorist attacks are rare in other countries, and all too commonplace in Pakistan today.

Given terrorism is Pakistan's top export

Meatbomb: Can you clarify what you mean by this?

claudius: I find it hard to believe that in 1987, given the activity of the Akali Dal, the Tamil Tigers, the Shining Path, the IRA, ETA, just to name the ones that I can think of off the top of my head, as well as a variety of groups in the Middle East, and a variety of groups in India, "90% of the worlds 777 terrorist incidents recorded took place in Pakistan." I'm happy to be corrected, but that sounds like incredibly sloppy recording to me.

I think Imran Khan is being incredibly vague when he refers to the invasion of Afghanistan by the West. If he means post-September 11, then he's talking total nonsense. However, it is not coincidental that militancy and terrorism in Pakistan has increased manifold since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Now I agree with you that all of this can't be blamed on the US. Before I get to answering your question about why, I'd just like to state that I don't think the US is blameless in this, either.

What are Pakistan's home-grown reasons for terrorism taking root? In this non-expert's opinion, and in no particular order:

1) The repeated imposition of military law and the military's constant meddling in politics have meant that non-military solutions to a problem have never really had a chance to capture the public imagination.
2) Education has never been prioritized, only given lip service.
3) The feudal system was never abolished. It's archaic and barbaric and renders huge swathes of the population utterly powerless.
4) Political leaders have not once chosen, that I can think of, to do the right thing instead of the easy one.
5) Traditional Islamic law has not evolved for the past 1000 years, mostly. So it doesn't fit into modern life. The emotional attachment to Islam, for the majority of Pakistanis, is far too deep to be able to ditch Islam altogether, but the lack of education means that the intellectual tools needed for religious law to evolve are simply missing. That combination allows a lot of intolerance and a lot of injustice to be justified in the name of Islam. That intolerance and injustice, in turn, makes it it very difficult for an extremely ethnically diverse population to get along.
6) Thousands of years of being looted have left a cultural history whose foremost narrative, for the masses, is "do what you need to do to survive, the ruler/government/powerful will keep changing, their oppression will not." So there really isn't a sense of "getting a government that will act out the will of the people." Even the majority of educated Pakistanis I know are highly skeptical about democracy as an institution.

There are probably other reasons, too. And for now, because that was the question I set out to answer, I'm only talking about internal reasons. Obviously, there are external factors as well.
posted by bardophile at 10:50 PM on May 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

gee de, does anyone import war! The commodification of war... like in business, well hell why not just sell everyone guns and let them fight it out OPPS forgot about the other nice countries who sell weapons.

The RAND CORP. lists only 394 terrorist incidents for 1987, while the US state department lists over a 1000. So my source I admit is iffy as I found other minor errors and this is an Espionage Encylopedia.
The number 777 must fit into someones data.

Again, I found the same wording on two more sites, one it seems a term paper site.

I too, would like to see the data but I found this.

"Afghan and Soviet forces conducted raids against mujahidin bases inside Pakistan, and a campaign of terror bombings and sabotage in Pakistan's cities, guided by Afghan intelligence agents, caused hundreds of casualties. In 1987 some 90 percent of the 777 terrorist incidents recorded worldwide took place in Pakistan."

and this.

NOTE: The information regarding Pakistan on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Pakistan Pakistan Becomes a Frontline State information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Pakistan Pakistan Becomes a Frontline State should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.

"Pakistan Becomes a Frontline State"
?
still, could the CIA and State be wrong?

TERRORISM IN PAKISTAN: CHANGING INCIDENT PATTERNS (PDF):Syed Ejaz Hussain
Deputy Inspector General of Pakistan Police

His data suggests 60 some incidents for Pakistan and the in the world, 1000s for that year.

I need to re-read this.
posted by clavdivs at 12:03 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks for that source, claudius. I need to read this, too.
posted by bardophile at 12:13 AM on May 24, 2011

clavdivs: OK Imran was rash to write that first short paragraph - but he's a politician and it got your attention.
Also internal Pakistan bomb attacks were frequently factional infighting not outside destabilization.
Neither do I agree with all his other points, but he does make some good ones.
All the Taliban have to do to win is not to lose...
the US remains confused and has still to straighten out its policy...
Remember, there was no Pakistani involvement in 9/11
We have borrowed a record amount of money from the International Monetary Fund, which was only given to us because of our role in the war, not because we could afford to pay it back.
Our social and economic fabric is being destroyed because of the conditions that the IMF has imposed.
and lastly
Political leaders in the US and UK should realize that people in the streets of New York and London are not threatened by the people in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan
but by the growing radicalization of their own marginalised Muslim youth.
And on preview bardophile gives all this some needed historical and culural background.
posted by adamvasco at 12:16 AM on May 24, 2011

Cyril Almeida talks to military analysts.
posted by bardophile at 1:51 AM on May 24, 2011

Political leaders in the US and UK should realize that people in the streets of New York and London are not threatened by the people in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan but by the growing radicalization of their own marginalised Muslim youth.

This whole thread about the most wanted international terrorist leader being found in Pakistan (and latter evidence shows he was actively involved in planning future attacks).
posted by rosswald at 5:04 AM on May 24, 2011

OBL Cologne.

On a more serious note: Outside View: The Taliban after bin Laden by Ammar Turabi Islamabad, Pakistan (UPI) May 23, 2011

Official statistics state that around 35,000 Pakistanis lost their lives in TTP terrorism since 2007. This includes a large number of high-profile killings, such as that of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In December 2007, Bhutto told this writer that Osama bin Laden's son, Khalid bin Laden, was involved in a conspiracy to kill her.

The insurgency of Tehrik-e-Taliban [TTP] Pakistan was conceived and directed by al-Qaida, In fact, it was al-Qaida's influence on the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud that goaded him to launch TTP in 2007.

For his part, bin Laden always wanted Pakistan and the United States to become enemies. Despite a major crisis in relations between the two countries, triggered by the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden in an unguarded house in Abbottabad, cooler heads appear to have prevailed -- in both Islamabad and Washington.

posted by nickyskye at 7:30 AM on May 24, 2011

A very interesting article: ANALYSIS - The Silence of the States: questions on bin Laden

(Reuters) - When President Barack Obama telephoned Pakistan's president to tell him U.S. forces had found and killed Osama bin Laden, he offered him a choice.

Pakistan could say it had helped find bin Laden or that it knew nothing. President Asif Ali Zardari chose the former.

Worried about a backlash from Islamist militants if it were seen to have helped the United States find and kill bin Laden, and insulted by Panetta's comments, Pakistan hit back.
Yet those drone strikes -- which have continued despite the parliament resolution -- illustrate the same problem Pakistan faced in its response to the U.S. raid which killed bin Laden.

Publicly condemned as a breach of sovereignty, they are privately condoned -- provided, officials say, the targets are chosen in coordination with Pakistan.

Was Pakistan, believing it had neutralised bin Laden, holding on to him as a bargaining chip with the United States? Officials deny this, insisting they did not know where he was.

This is exactly what I thought and the article explores some of the very complex aspects of the Pakistan-Afghanistan-US-India-Kashmir relationship.
posted by nickyskye at 7:55 AM on May 24, 2011

Noam Chomsky is against it

Extended version

After the assassination of bin Laden I received such a deluge of requests for comment that I was unable to respond individually, and on May 4 and later I sent an unedited form response instead, not intending for it to be posted, and expecting to write it up more fully and carefully later on. But it was posted, then circulated. It can now be found, reposted, at http://www.zcommunications.org/my-reaction-to-osama-bin-laden-s-death-by-noam-chomsky.

That was followed but a deluge of reactions from all over the world. It is far from a scientific sample of course, but nevertheless, the tendencies may be of some interest. Overwhelmingly, those from the “third world” were on the order of “thanks for saying what we think.” There were similar ones from the US, but many others were infuriated, often virtually hysterical, with almost no relation to the actual content of the posted form letter. That was true in particular of the posted or published responses brought to my attention. I have received a few requests to comment on several of these. Frankly, it seems to me superfluous. If there is any interest, I’ll nevertheless find some time to do so.

The original letter ends with the comment that “There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.” Here I will fill in some of the gaps, leaving the original otherwise unchanged in all essentials.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:57 AM on May 24, 2011

The RAND chronology lists incidents of international terrorism. This requires some evidence that the terrorist actors were from outside the country attacked. State has much looser standards and domestic crimes can be counted as terrorism. So it's apples and oranges. The RAND-St.Andrews chronology is for the purpose of studying terrorism. State compiles their stats so they can talk about terrorism. Stats from the Diplomatic Protective Service relating to open investigations would be a better index, but they are not gong to be published.

I'm just finishing up reading Deception, a book about US-Pak proliferation policies. That pooch has been thoroughly scewed, so much that it unlikely to get unscrewed.

Deception is not a great book, it is poorly sourced in places, but it lays out a general outline of how things got so totally messed up.
posted by warbaby at 7:58 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I fear that Pakistan is going to become like Lebanon, Somalia or Yugoslavia. The difference is one or more factions will control a handful of nuclear bombs. As in Lebanon there will lots of games played by various factions to draw in allies and opponents to the conflict.
posted by humanfont at 8:15 AM on May 24, 2011

Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says

What's outrageous is the US supplies billions in arms to Pakistan.

For the period from calendar year 2005 through calendar year 2008, Pakistan has placed
orders with the United States for defense articles and services through the FMS program valued at $4.5 billion.

But where would Pakistan, such a poor country, get 4.5 billion dollars to buy those arms from the US?

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms

Why has the US government done this?! It's insane. What could the motives possibly be for creating such a bizarrely destructive situation? I don't understand this at all.
posted by nickyskye at 8:23 AM on May 24, 2011

nickyskye: " But where would Pakistan, such a poor country, get 4.5 billion dollars to buy those arms from the US? "

I posted a comment earlier with a link that explained some of the history of and reasoning behind our material support for Pakistan.
posted by zarq at 8:46 AM on May 24, 2011

material support for Pakistan

This is not "material support" in any sane way. Nuclear arms to a country fractured by various terrorist groups with an eye to jihad, one one side next to Taliban run Afghanistan and next to India a traditional political enemy over which a chunk of the country, Kashmir is creating a border war?

That's nuts.

I know the CIA took root in Pakistan in '79 to oust the USSR from Afghanistan, undermining the Soviet army with heroin the way the US army had been rotted-undermined by heroin in Vietnam. But wouldn't that Afghanistan-Pakistan heroin business be even more reason not to supply Pakistan with nukes?

The US government is involved in so many layers of corruption in Pakistan that the mind boggles.

I remember, when living in India how furious the Indian people were that the US supported dictator run Pakistan under the brutal-corrupt rule of Zia, but did not support India, the world's most populous democracy.

The worst offense for many Indians and that created much ire in India was when the US sent a war ship to sit near India. in 1971. > During the Pakistani civil war in 1971, the US dispatched another aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, to the Bay of Bengal. This was widely seen as signaling Washington's opposition to the continuation of the war after the Pakistan Army surrendered to Indian troops in Dhaka and East Pakistan became independent as Bangladesh.
posted by nickyskye at 9:24 AM on May 24, 2011

Great blog post on OBL's death from Et, Tu Mr. Destructo?.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:29 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

nickyskye: "This is not "material support" in any sane way."

Please note that I didn't say it was. But you asked where they got $4.5bn (that's what I quoted from your comment, and was the question I was answering.) The US and Pakistan have a long-term relationship that has simultaneously backfired on us in some ways, helped to destabilize the region in others and has enriched Pakistan for decades.
posted by zarq at 9:49 AM on May 24, 2011

nickyskye: " I remember, when living in India how furious the Indian people were that the US supported dictator run Pakistan under the brutal-corrupt rule of Zia, but did not support India, the world's most populous democracy. "

There's obviously far more to it than that, though. There's the Muslim / Hindu antagonism and the fierce sense of independence they feel regarding being dictated to.

India has always done what is in India's best interests. They have highly resented any outside influences imposing themselves on Indian affairs. (IOW, they're no different from most other countries, but especially no different than countries that were formerly colonies.) The general attitude within India before they became a nuclear power always seemed to be, "Who are you to dictate to us whether we should have nuclear weapons or not?" They especially seemed to resent being lectured about the dangers of nuclear proliferation by the US, since: (a) we are the only country to have ever used those weapons on the battlefield, and (b) we had brought the world to the brink of destruction during the Cold War.

Which is of course, reasonable.
posted by zarq at 9:58 AM on May 24, 2011

The worst offense for many Indians and that created much ire in India was when the US sent a war ship to sit near India. in 1971.

That's really interesting, since in Pakistan, that gesture was seen as much too little, much too late. If I remember correctly, it was timed so that the ship didn't arrive until the surrender of the Pakistani army was inevitable. So they managed to make people really angry with that on both sides of the border. :)

The general attitude within India before they became a nuclear power always seemed to be, "Who are you to dictate to us whether we should have nuclear weapons or not?" They especially seemed to resent being lectured about the dangers of nuclear proliferation by the US, since: (a) we are the only country to have ever used those weapons on the battlefield, and (b) we had brought the world to the brink of destruction during the Cold War.

Which is of course, reasonable.

This mirrors the Pakistani attitude about the US dictating nuclear policy, too. I don't know what the view is in establishment circles, but these are precisely the same objections that educated Pakistanis raise. They also add "and you let India off the hook."

It's interesting, actually. Amartya Sen has written about this in The Argumentative Indian. He argues that India actually lost a strategic advantage by building nuclear weapons, because it gave Pakistan an excuse to do the same, and ended up neutralizing the huge disparity in conventional military strength. I read it a while ago, so I don't remember whether he said anything about what impact it might have had on India's relations with China.

the US supported dictator run Pakistan under the brutal-corrupt rule of Zia

The US wasn't merely giving Pakistan billions of dollars of aid despite the presence of a military dictator. The US *liked* the presence of a military dictator in Pakistan. It's generally been very convenient for them, each time it's happened. That's one of the reasons many Pakistanis suspect that the US government helped the dictators into power. Whether this suspicion is correct or not is a different story.
posted by bardophile at 10:31 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sticherbeast: "Great blog post on OBL's death from Et, Tu Mr. Destructo?."

That was fantastic. Thanks for posting it!
posted by zarq at 10:33 AM on May 24, 2011

Neither do I agree with all his other points, but he does make some good ones.

The point about talibanization (sic sp) raises a great question.
Also, the increase in suicide bombings has increased many fold since 2004 no one can deny this.

Warbaby could sort out this terrorist incident statstic ordeal. Alot of raids took place with-in Pakistan that year. perhaps the stat is ground and honed from some criteria.
To me, 600 major raids is easily envisioned for 1987.
posted by clavdivs at 10:41 AM on May 24, 2011

zarq, I did not take what you said in any kind of antagonistic way. I read the article you linked and was only conversationally saying that the "material support" the US has given Pakistan is nuts in light of the mess the US had a hand in creating there. Especially the nukes.

Some of the things I disagreed strongly with in the article are statements like: India has become the state that we tried to create in Pakistan. It is a rising economic star, militarily powerful and democratic, and it shares American interests. Pakistan, however, is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism.

The US did not try to create a democracy in Pakistan. Ever. The US supported the dictatorship of Zia, who was considered to be a US puppet. The US taxpayers fund the CIA, which created the heroin business in Pakistan-Afghanistan. *

I meant it somewhat rhetorically saying where did Pakistan get the billions of dollars to buy US weapons. Pakistan got the money from the US. We gave them money, to buy our weapons, gave terrorists arms and created a heroin business with the heroin being sold to the US. Our citizens screwed both ways. How sick is that?!

We created a terrorist country, armed to the hilt with our own weapons, including nukes, then have taxpayers fund the War On Terror, pay the TSA to 'protect us' from the terrorists we armed in the first place.

The US created the world's largest heroin business on the Afghani-Pakistani border, "The Golden Crescent", that heroin is shipped to the US and the US taxpayers then pay for a War On Drugs.

> U.S.-backed mujaheddin militants raised money for arms from selling opium, contributing heavily to the modern Golden Crescent creation. By 1980, 60% of heroin sold in the U.S. originated in Afghanistan.

It's so frikkin sick it's wayyyy sick, LOL

From the New Yorker article you linked: Pakistan’s economy is now almost entirely dependent on American taxpayers

I wonder what mainstream US citizens would think about that because I don't think most Americans have any idea what a mess their taxpayer dollars have created in Pakistan.

As for there being more to the Indian Pakistan antagonism, I didn't touch that subject except where it came to Kashmir. What I put the focus on is that the US supported India's enemy, Pakistan, arming it to the hilt, when the US knows Pakistan is torn apart by extremist factions. That was and still is a source of much anguish for many Indians. India is basically, comparatively, a peace loving nation. It has been pretty much throughout its history.

India has always done what is in India's best interests.

Well, the US has been undermining those interests of India's by arming Pakistan to the tune of billions of dollars annually. CIA endorsed heroin from Afghanistan-Pakistan found its way into India too in the 1980's, causing a huge problem for India then. After the US sided with Pakistan in 1971 India felt very isolated. India has both China and Russia to its North, two enemies in British created West and East Pakistan on either side (now called Pakistan and Bangladesh). Then there is communist Burma to the East. Civil warn torn Sri Lanka to the South. And on top of that the US pumping billions into a terrorist riddled Pakistan. India damn well needs to look out for its own interests, nobody else is.
posted by nickyskye at 10:45 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

bardophile: " This mirrors the Pakistani attitude about the US dictating nuclear policy, too. I don't know what the view is in establishment circles, but these are precisely the same objections that educated Pakistanis raise. They also add "and you let India off the hook."

Absolutely. The same attitude has been raised by folks like Iranian President Ahmadenijad regarding their nuclear program.

For decades, US nuclear policy (heck, the policy of everyone in the nuclear club) has been "we can't trust anyone but ourselves with nukes, so no one else should have them." I understand that sentiment and even sympathize with it re: Iran, but it's incredibly hypocritical of us to be groping for some sort of moral high ground while acting with distrust.

It's interesting, actually. Amartya Sen has written about this in The Argumentative Indian. He argues that India actually lost a strategic advantage by building nuclear weapons, because it gave Pakistan an excuse to do the same, and ended up neutralizing the huge disparity in conventional military strength. I read it a while ago, so I don't remember whether he said anything about what impact it might have had on India's relations with China."

That makes a lot of sense.

I own that book but still haven't gotten around to reading it. Really must make time for it.
posted by zarq at 10:53 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Qutb's truly frightening religious beliefs and swift death did not consign him to the dustbin of history, for a very simple, shocking reason: many of his political complaints are entirely valid and would be seconded by the most secular Cairene strolling to the Zamalek Starbucks.

(from Sticherbeast's link). This is SO exceedingly well-put. And still relevant as an explanation.

They hate Muslims who don’t subscribe to their beliefs with intensity far more gripping than that of the "American-Zionist Crusaders."

This explains their willingness to blow up mosques while people are worshipping.

Sticherbeast, thank you, that really was a tremendous piece.

***********************
Civil warn torn Sri Lanka to the South.

Of course India played a pretty huge role in fanning that civil war. Let's not wear rose-coloured glasses about the nature of the Indian state.
posted by bardophile at 10:56 AM on May 24, 2011

Pakistan’s Chinese Gambit
posted by homunculus at 11:00 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I understand that sentiment and even sympathize with it re: Iran, but it's incredibly hypocritical of us to be groping for some sort of moral high ground while acting with distrust.

Agreeing with that wholeheartedly.

It's interesting, actually. Amartya Sen has written about this in The Argumentative Indian. He argues that India actually lost a strategic advantage by building nuclear weapons, because it gave Pakistan an excuse to do the same, and ended up neutralizing the huge disparity in conventional military strength. I read it a while ago, so I don't remember whether he said anything about what impact it might have had on India's relations with China."

An interesting point.

Let's not wear rose-coloured glasses about the nature of the Indian state.

What rose colored glasses? I am saying that India is surrounded on all sides by enemies or intense political conflict and needs to look out for itself.
posted by nickyskye at 11:00 AM on May 24, 2011

But I will openly admit, I am passionately biased towards India.
posted by nickyskye at 11:01 AM on May 24, 2011

I am saying that India is surrounded on all sides by enemies or intense political conflict and needs to look out for itself.

I guess what I am saying is that India (which OF COURSE, like every other country, should look out for itself) has played a not insignificant role in intensifying political conflicts in neighbouring states, and certainly has done no better than Pakistan at reducing the enmity between the two states (It served the interest of both establishments to have a menace to frighten people with). India has been trying for decades to become a regional superpower, and in the process, has made a lot of mistakes that are reminiscent of the ones made by global superpowers in their pursuit of that position.

None of this detracts from India's achievements vis a vis maintaining democracy, dismantling the feudal system, etc. And I suppose, despite my utterly sincere desire for peace between India and Pakistan, I too, can be biased when it comes to India.
posted by bardophile at 11:09 AM on May 24, 2011

has enriched Pakistan for decades

LOL! Yes, they certainly seem enriched eh? Well, I suppose somebody there is making out well - I wonder who, hmm?

Given terrorism is Pakistan's top export

Meatbomb: Can you clarify what you mean by this?

I thought it was kind of clear I was being half jokey there? There are no specific dollar figures attached to terrorism, so hard to compare it to textiles. But yeah, American $$$ -> Pak Army / ISI -> all kinds of ugly people longing for glorious jihad -> bombs in Kashmir, Mumbai, Afghanistan... Does it really need a lot of further explanation?
posted by Meatbomb at 11:13 AM on May 24, 2011

Well, once upon a time, not too long ago, 1947, both Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of India.

And in 1962 China took a huge chunk out of India. Nobody helped.

I wonder who, hmm?

Exactly!

And I suppose, despite my utterly sincere desire for peace between India and Pakistan, I too, can be biased when it comes to India.

Yes. So beautifully said.
posted by nickyskye at 11:17 AM on May 24, 2011

Well, once upon a time, not too long ago, 1947, both Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of India

I know it surprises you that I am aware of this. ;)
posted by bardophile at 11:25 AM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought it was kind of clear I was being half jokey there? ... Does it really need a lot of further explanation?

Naah. I was just making sure that you *were* making a lazy snide joke, rather than some substantive point that I was missing.
posted by bardophile at 11:36 AM on May 24, 2011

And another Facebook status update from a friend (re: the attack on PNS Mehran): "Why is it that when Mumbai happened everybody was concerned about the people of Mumbai, but when yesterday happened everybody was concerned about Pakistan's other military assets and not the people of Karachi? Pakistan's people have been dehumanized. They are statistics. Is there anybody, anybody out there who gives a shit about the people of Pakistan?"
posted by bardophile at 11:39 AM on May 24, 2011

nickyskye: "zarq, I did not take what you said in any kind of antagonistic way.

Just to be clear, I didn't take it that way!

Tone is so hard to convey in text. I probably shouldn't have used bold text in my comment. Sorry about that.

I know I can be abrasive, but truly and sincerely, wasn't trying to be here.

I read the article you linked and was only conversationally saying that the "material support" the US has given Pakistan is nuts in light of the mess the US had a hand in creating there. Especially the nukes.

Ahhh. Okay. Yep, I agree.

Some of the things I disagreed strongly with in the article are statements like: India has become the state that we tried to create in Pakistan. It is a rising economic star, militarily powerful and democratic, and it shares American interests. Pakistan, however, is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism.

The US did not try to create a democracy in Pakistan. Ever. The US supported the dictatorship of Zia, who was considered to be a US puppet. The US taxpayers fund the CIA, which created the heroin business in Pakistan-Afghanistan. *

Well.... here's the thing. We kinda/sorta tried to create the illusion of democracy for some idiotic reason. We supported a sham civilian democracy.

I have more to say, but am running into a doctor's appointment with my son and don't want to lose this comment. Will continue a little later. :)
posted by zarq at 12:48 PM on May 24, 2011

We kinda/sorta tried to create the illusion of democracy for some idiotic reason.

Well, it wasn't an idiotic reason. Real democracy in Pakistan would very likely throw up a government unfriendly to the US, whereas a Zia or a Musharraf is at least nominally aligned with US interests. A fake democracy is necessary to give the US a public foreign policy pretext for supporting it.

This kind of reasoning tends to ignore the blowback and the unintended consequences and the wisdom of interfering in foreign politics in general, but it wasn't an idiotic reason on its face.
posted by unSane at 1:07 PM on May 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Real democracy in Pakistan would very likely throw up a government unfriendly to the US

Today, that's just possibly true, although I don't see any major party on Pakistan's political scene who has the nerve to stand up to the US government. When Uncle Sam started supporting tin-pot dictators in Pakistan, anti-American sentiment wasn't anything remotely close to a majority view.

But I agree with you that it wasn't an idiotic reason. I think the reason was that pretending to support democracy was a sop to the American voter/taxpayer. That's not idiotic, it's realpolitik.
posted by bardophile at 1:52 PM on May 24, 2011

I think the reason was that pretending to support democracy was a sop to the American voter/taxpayer. That's not idiotic, it's realpolitik.

It's not idiotic. It's damn evil.

Realpolitik and geopolitics, especially oil politics, for which the US taxpayers have been bled, literally.

The TAPI pipeline is now solidly in the works. The Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement firmed up. The Soviets thwarted from "Global Reach" as well as thwarted by the US from getting the mega pipeline the Soviets wanted from their oil fields, now Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf way back in 1979, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan and this whole US funding the Taliban with arms and supporting their heroin biz to take down the Soviet army thing started rolling.

But in doing this, the US government has screwed the US taxpayers for decades, invaded countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, (and now to some degree Pakistan and Libya) created wars, dominated the US citizens into abject submission, taken away basic civil rights with the laughably called Patriot Act, actually gotten travelers to fork over anything but 3 oz of their shampoo and water bottles, take off their shoes and go through porno scanners, with the War On Terror, a War On Drugs that the US government participated actively in creating in the first place.
posted by nickyskye at 3:51 PM on May 24, 2011

It's not idiotic. It's damn evil.

Agreed.

Realpolitik and geopolitics, especially oil politics, for which the US taxpayers have been bled, literally.

Oh, I can think of other parties that have been more profusely, and literally, bled...
posted by bardophile at 3:57 PM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, I can think of other parties that have been more profusely, and literally, bled...

Well said. At least they didn't pay with their tax dollars to be bled. Milked, then bled.
posted by nickyskye at 4:21 PM on May 24, 2011

When Uncle Sam started supporting tin-pot dictators in Pakistan

Nuclear balance in an asymmetrical war. tough one. What I can't get is why has not the government in Pakistan said "out" or something like "we got from here" why? a few billion $, a small amount, pocket change really.

The TAPI pipeline is now solidly in the works. that may be, but I see nothing but trouble even in a stable region if local folk decide to extract "payment" not to blow a hole in it. Don't tell me it's totally secure either. They may have settled on a price but what price security because Indian Natural Gas Minister Jaipal Reddy expressed concern over outstanding issues like safety of the pipeline in Afghanistan and Pakistan

that was almost 4 weeks ago, has anything changed security in last month....opps, tin-foil conjecture.

but as a subsumed american, I guess there is no point.
posted by clavdivs at 4:54 PM on May 24, 2011

Omg, reading that great article Sticherbeast linked on Et, Tu Mr. Destructo? Wow. It's brilliant. Genius. Haven't read anything that good about this topic in forever. Poetry.

Historians will be hard-pressed to find an agitator who castrated an empire using less money and exerting less energy than Bin Laden.

I see nothing but trouble even in a stable region if local folk decide to extract "payment" not to blow a hole in it.

It will be for that reason the US military will not leave Afghanistan/Pakistan for years. Possibly never. All the countries building the TAPI pipeline now have a vested interest in 'securing the region'.
posted by nickyskye at 5:21 PM on May 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

@ReallyVirtual: REUTERSFLASH: Huge explosion heard in garrison area of Pakistani city of Peshawar - Taliban's gift #3 to Pakistan after OBL death?

14 injured in Peshawar blast
posted by nickyskye at 5:34 PM on May 24, 2011

bardophile, have you seen this vid of OBL's neighbor saying he witnessed the downed helicopter and dead bodies in the compound? Is this a hoax or what?
posted by nickyskye at 7:30 PM on May 24, 2011

I hadn't seen that video. My brother-in-law, as I mentioned before, went to the boarding school in Abbottabad. He visited the school a week or so ago, and was talking about his conversations with people there. To summarize, a lot of people came out on to their roofs when the raid began. Low flying helicopters are not a very common thing there. People WERE told to go back inside, or they might get shot. Also, according to a classmate of his who is from Bilal Town (the part of Abbottabad that the OBL compound was in), the neighbourhood has changed a lot over the past decade or so. The small-town feel has disappeared, and the presence of rich foreigners who keep themselves to themselves is not particularly noteworthy.

As far as veracity of this particular video goes, it sounds a bit sketchy to me. Why?

1) The guy is linked to the Jamaat-i-Islami, such that he wanted to check with the local chapter's head before he talked to the reporter. The Jamaat-i-Islami doesn't even really think Osama bin Laden was all that bad...
2) There are things in his account that don't add up.

a) He says he was lying flat on the roof of his house in order to see what was going on, without being observed. The way houses in Pakistan are normally constructed, there is usually a small wall going around the edge of the roof. If you live in kite-flying country, the wall may be as much as three feet tall, but they're usually at least one foot. How do you lie flat on the ground and still look over a foot-high wall? And he's really specific about the fact that he was lying down. That struck me as really odd.
b) Then he's incredibly vague about transitions. He talks about what he saw from the roof, and what he saw from within the compound, but doesn't talk at all about how he got from one place to another.
c) The biggest one is that the number of helicopters in his account changes. At the beginning, he talks about one helicopter coming and dropping people off, and then later when it came back, another coming from a different direction. (One came from the north, the other from the west). At this point he says that there were two helicopters, total, and one flew away without landing, while the other exploded. Later in the account, he talks about a second helicopter flying away, also.
d) He had nothing to say about why he was the only one telling this version of the story.

So, I'm speculating, based on what I know of Pakistan and what I see in the video. Take that as you will.

Also, it doesn't help that the reporter is an embarrassment to TV journalists all over the world. She basically asks him the same question over and over again, instead of building from one to the next. "So tell us what you saw." "So, tell me exactly what you saw." "So, tell me again, in vivid detail, what you saw." The woman should be taken out and put out of her misery.
posted by bardophile at 12:59 AM on May 25, 2011

bardophile, Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, I know just what you mean about the small wall often at the edge of kite flying roof tops. It does seem from these pics though of OBL's house with no wall on top and other houses around the compound that there may not have been a wall on top. Or sometimes the wall on top has holes in it, like the one on the right in this pic.

I did find a translation of the interview for those who might be interested and tweeted @ReallyVirtual, who lives in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, to ask him what he and the neighbors think.
posted by nickyskye at 5:43 AM on May 25, 2011

Nickyskye, is that translation accurate? It's ascribed to Gordon Duff, who is a nutter.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:02 AM on May 25, 2011

Joe in Australia, it's a reasonably accurate translation, from my skim of it. Just the kinds of errors you'd normally expect from the average educated Pakistani's English. The accuracy of the account is a different issue altogether, and something I'm pretty skeptical about.

As I said earlier, the interviewer was pretty bad at her job. I also find it remarkable that all they verified was the identity of this man and his residence. Why were there no interviews of people telling a different story, even though the interviewer asks quite clearly, at one point, "Why are you the only one telling this story?" It has all the earmarks of sensationalist journalism.
posted by bardophile at 7:13 AM on May 25, 2011

The translation is okay from my rusty Urdu. The story itself I've no idea. The man being interviewed said the people in Bilal Town (the part of Abbottabad where the compound is) are afraid to come forward. He also said his cousin, who is now in custody, was OBL's gardener.

> Apart from the shock of the incident, locals have also developed a sense of fear. A young boy working at a bread baker shop asked for his name not to be published as the police are said to be harassing those whose names appear in newspapers. “I am a poor labourer and I cannot afford to spend two days in a police station,” he said.

However, if, after shooting OBL, taking the pics with the head cams etc, the helicopter then crashed and body parts strewn about in the yard, it might make more sense to have a sea burial?

No idea if it's true. It was just the only civilian eye witness account of the helicopter landing I came across on the web. Not much about it in the mainstream media.
posted by nickyskye at 8:56 AM on May 25, 2011

It will be for that reason the US military will not leave Afghanistan/Pakistan for years. Possibly never. All the countries building the TAPI pipeline now have a vested interest in 'securing the region'

Really, lets see how that works out. Are you lost to the scam taking place with TAPI?

Historians will be hard-pressed to find an agitator who castrated an empire using less money and exerting less energy than Bin Laden.

is that from the dictator writer guys?
I have 5 examples historically and it's lunch. One is Gavrilo Princip.

Kathryn Bigelow Gets Green Light for bin Laden Film.

I look forward to that. Her work is great.
posted by clavdivs at 9:11 AM on May 25, 2011

However, if, after shooting OBL, taking the pics with the head cams etc, the helicopter then crashed and body parts strewn about in the yard, it might make more sense to have a sea burial?

Uh, what?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:17 AM on May 25, 2011

yeah...are you padding this thread nickyskye... even i refute or question my own information. I think you are fitting your agenda with what ever sources fit.
posted by clavdivs at 9:33 AM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

scam taking place with TAPI?

Please offer cites. Would enjoy reading.
posted by nickyskye at 10:14 AM on May 25, 2011

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan

That may well add an interesting twist to the US involvement in Afghanistan.
posted by nickyskye at 10:19 AM on May 25, 2011

BREAKING: Enraged 500-Foot Bin Laden Emerges From the Sea
posted by Rhaomi at 10:33 AM on May 25, 2011 [3 favorites]

wait for the wikileak. How about a link to human nature. I hope they pull it off, really.

but who benefits, the U.S.? perhaps but will it really off set oil prices when some idiot in Nigeria can blow a well head or other world wide oil production problems...and with the middle east in "change"....well. If it helps the region, let them do it, but why does the u.s. have to have forces in pakistan to protect something that has not even been built.

vast mineral resourses...ok, study the lapis mining industry in Afghanistan for the last 30-40 years. They have the best lapis, the pharohs knew this. It is difficult to mine there but if it can give the people money, great. Again, we are approaching a world were access to these resourses may not be possible for political reasons whatever. Are we going to re-invade for lithium and lapis.

what you may not understand is how bad solders would like to end this but politics rules the military, so use the vote. It's our only hope.
posted by clavdivs at 11:21 AM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hahahahaha: U.S. Navy countertrademarks "Seal Team Six," Disney backs down "out of deference."
posted by Rhaomi at 5:12 PM on May 25, 2011 [2 favorites]

I think that Disney's actions were embarrassingly crass and stupid, but as a matter of law does it make sense to say that the US Navy is engaged in trade, and wishes to protect its commercial identity?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:56 PM on May 25, 2011

Don't know about the law, but I'm glad the Navy countersued. The last thing the world needs is Disney take on all this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:01 PM on May 25, 2011 [3 favorites]

clavdivs, your comments are incoherently written, so I don't know if you are genuinely asking me a question or questions or joking. I've written the following comment with little hope that you might actually read it. I'm not pro TAPI, not pro war in Afghanistan, at all.

Looking at the US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan with an eye on the geopolitics is relevant to this conversation about OBL's death because it is part of understanding why the US military is entrenched in Afghanistan, why Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US will not be enemies at this tim and, why US troops will remain in Afghanistan.

And maybe, just speculating, it means that there will be more cohesion in the Afghani-Pakistani-US collaboration in ousting extremists. I hope it means furthering peace and prosperity in that part of the world as a side effect of corporate Big Oil greed but maybe that's too hopeful.

You asked: but who benefits, the U.S.?

Do you mean would the US benefit from the TAPI pipeline?

The answer is yes. Not the US as a country or its taxpaying citizens but some US run corporations and its political-corporate allies. It means the US military-government has a foothold in South Asia, prevents Iran from having total control of the gas-oil business in that part of the world. It's part of the US government's participation in The Great Game against Russian domination in that part of the world. The TAPI pipeline is part of the US government's geopolitical agenda.

A major reason for US interest in the Taliban in the first place, way back in the early 90's, was a 4.5-billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline that a US-led oil consortium, Unocal (now morphed into Chevron), planned to build from Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan across war-ravaged Afghanistan, across Pakistan to India and/or just across Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf.

The TAPI pipeline has been in the works for 16 plus years.

NATO has balked at protecting the TAPI pipeline, so the US government stepped up its military presence in Afghanistan to do the job. > Five thousand to 7,000 security forces will be deployed to safeguard the pipeline route.

> "United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Norway—are also active members of the Asian Development Bank, the sponsor of the TAPI project.

Any Bank financing for the project would require the approval of member countries, and a project as sensitive as this would require the early blessing of the US and Japan, the two major shareholders. As well, with such a heavy military presence, US/NATO influence on Kabul is obvious. Discussions of NATO support for TAPI pipeline security raise questions about the links between military and development decisions."

You asked: Are we going to re-invade for lithium and lapis.

We don't need to re-invade. The US is already there in Afghanistan. There has just been a 30 thousand troop "surge". A year ago the US had more troops in Afghanistan, 94 thou than in Iraq, 92 thou. > ..."they anticipate that the U.S. will not substantially reduce nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan anytime soon."

> So, Afghanistan has already been totally invaded by the US military.

> Lithium is a multi-billion dollar business potential in Afghanistan. Lapis, although very beautiful, is not.

You said: what you may not understand is how bad solders would like to end this

Why would you assume that?

so use the vote.

Yes, thank you, I will.

It's our only hope.

No, not our only hope but important.
posted by nickyskye at 9:06 PM on May 25, 2011

Well, the ipad action-grip would have been cool, or not...not. funny, that as a joke ,it sounds funny but it's really not. BB, your a comic genius, what’s your take. My guess is black humor with callous regard....really need to work on that.
one thing I know is that Rhaomi, Joe in Australia and BB and you too Nicky agree one thing, that this toy deal is shameful. a lot of events cause more harm and shame, we got enough of that to deal with and we are not alone, but a toy is not good.

as an aside, The biggest lie is with-in the lie about Iraq 2, was the reason to invade. WMD were just part of the deal, the bogyman clause I say and when Powell went to table to present the case I said it will have to be an Adlai moment- BAM here’s the beef...and no beef. I saw it but just knew it was a what if/what was/what could be presentation with some declassified reports...no Adlai moment, hmmm perhaps there is something that’s really secret...the point is that was only one aspect to the resolution, did we lie, technically no due to plausible deniability.

a lot has been mentioned about Bob Baer. I cannot strongly enough encourage folks to read his work. (He was in India in the 70's, think he copied, stolen though an agent, the manual for the T-72 or 80 tank in a night flurry of Xerox fatigue...great story)

We are such a young country and history does not give us much to go on. As an American, I know the day, the hour and reason that my country was founded.
oh and I know its evils- oh sister bring me a legal tablet. But I also know its good and its ability to function in near isolation, this globalism/corpartism is just another bill boarded entity that could be smashed if not corrected, it is being corrected, it knows this because the people are angry.

the people are angry.
more power then a jimmy carter class submarine.
the people are becoming frightened
more energy then the planet can afford.

Is it a great country? I know this for one simple reason. A lot of things just don't matter when you can etch a human shadow into concrete. The united states had a virtual monopoly on nuclear weapons and if this country were like others in history, we would have walked a bomb into any force that would oppose. This axiom would have fallen under the rationale “weed out the bad elements now, so as to enjoy a greater world peace.”

Sounds familiar.
posted by clavdivs at 9:07 PM on May 25, 2011

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan

That may well add an interesting twist to the US involvement in Afghanistan.

there's some indication that that story was part of a psyops... er, information campaign.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:15 PM on May 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

really nickyske your talking pennies in a dollar world, this TAPI will not do anything to ease the world wide demand only facilitate the ease of oil unto a already fucked up system of production and distribution if it works.
How much for the pipline/how long to build
how much for a the lithium mines and production/ how long til it reaches the market.

It's part of the US government's participation in The Great Game against Russian domination in that part of the world.

The days of the jezail are over. It is the days of the AK-47. The great game as you say has been facilitated through Pakistan as of late, like since 1979. Did you ever think that someone may have lured the Sovs into afghanistan...(;)) Because even as a kid i knew that was a bone headed move. The great game is that no one knows who controls what or what controls can been known. It was very confusing as you well know.

All these countries have to do is say leave and we will, do you not think this is true, do you think we have so much power as to control everyone? ITS AFGHANISTAN. A people who have known battle better then most. No one can control (as in foreigh invaders) it and never will.

You said: what you may not understand is how bad solders would like to end this

Why would you assume that?

assume? I know, trust me.

what you utterly fail to see is that they are solders and will do their duty above there own concerns...you looking for some low morale info?...morale is high, desire to end this is why.
posted by clavdivs at 9:35 PM on May 25, 2011

that that story was part of a psyops... er, information campaign

OMG, are you saying a....a...a conspiracy?!! LOL Just kidding. I love the line in that essay "We must wean ourselves off our dependence on foreign lithium!" Very funny.

Still, the article says: The story is accurate, but the news is not that new; let's think a bit harder about the context.

Good point.
posted by nickyskye at 9:35 PM on May 25, 2011

Intelligence work by it's nature involves conspiracy, thats why it is called secret. your not kidding because it would be a valid psy-op (one that would make others look like they conspired) if it is. Hum, why not, though why...so much time, so little to do...wait reverse that...on to the lickable wallpaper.

a real conspiracy would be the reason to leave that country. I like "bring home the troops for christmas conspiracy" plays to the heart, shows the combatant you want out with face and a turkey dinner to boot. mail increases, folks get excited and a little worried, houses bought cars bought people marry/divorce yatta-yatta.

ya, I like the "have a life other then guarding this fucking rock conspiracy"

thats for the warhead crowd. to the heart strings, push the need to re-build and provide aid as proven by exhibit X (paste good deeds despite occupation list here) then it gets transitioned to some other entities like jimmy carter and red cresent (oh, wait) then if others dont interfere, the good people of Afghanistan can continue, on thier own, to re-build and stabilize the society they live in. No doubt they can do it, right?

its all there waiting to happen but why not. The russians, iran, the americans.

The ponders that embarass.

the real crux of this thread, the 20 plus year war, most of it kept secret is that who will ever step forth again like OBL and declare war. The man came from one of the most powerful families on the planet. He was a disgrace...imagine OBL with his band of roughes and wizards telling the king he can slay Nebuchadnezzar III.

The are fools and there are madmen. There are no foolish madmen....follow
posted by clavdivs at 10:22 PM on May 25, 2011

Afghanistan war tactics are profoundly wrong, says former ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles.
He was ambassador to Kabul 2007 - 10 and For almost all that time, he would tell anyone ready to listen that things were getting worse and the army-driven plans were self-defeating and ultimately disastrous. I don't think his book is available yet in the US.
Cables From Kabul: The Inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign
Re riches for the military industrial complex - Balochistan's mineral wealth and Alexanders Gas and Oil connections.
The Chinese, who are Pakistan's oldest political and military ally are moving in big time. They have built and will run Gwador deep water port possibly utilizing it as their first foreign navy base. So the great game - demeaned as history above - is in fact very much on. China is the great consumer and the US would like to be the throttle washer on the tap and China is looking to protect its supply lines.
posted by adamvasco at 12:34 AM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

And now it's time for a little black humour from the Pakistani people:

"Welcome to Pak Army Hotline. Press 1) For Real Estate 2) Banking 3) Construction 4) Logistics 5) Retail, 6) Event Management. For Security please call Brinks. "
posted by bardophile at 4:24 AM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

BB, your a comic genius, what’s your take. My guess is black humor with callous regard....really need to work on that.

I working towards ironid callous regard. Only have 12 more credits to take.

Otherwise, not terribly familiar with Pakistan, suspect less American involvement would be good for them and us. If they're going to fall apart and go Somalian, I say lets get on with that so we can get past it.

America could use some more belt tightening and conservation, so we're less reliant on oil and quit feeling the need to secure the resource by whatever means suits us. Halve the defense budget, double NASA's and lets get some of that there universal health care. Free birth control for all. Build more bike lanes and train routes. $20 tax on Nickelback CDs. $10 on Lady Gaga's.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:33 AM on May 26, 2011

If they're going to fall apart and go Somalian, I say lets get on with that so we can get past it.

Well, you seem to be doing pretty well on the 'callous' front. Seriously, I understand the sentiment, but do you realize that this is my home, my family, my friends, you're talking about? There are real people who live there, many of whom have made it their life's work to prevent the country from "falling apart and going Somalian."
posted by bardophile at 4:49 AM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

There are real people who live there, many of whom have made it their life's work to prevent the country from "falling apart and going Somalian."

And I hope they succeed. It's far better for Pakistan (and the world) to not go that route, of course. But I suspect it's something that the country and its citizens are gonna have wrestle with and fix themselves. America is just going to meddle and get in the way of things, IMO. Yet I often hear an argument that if America doesn't do something (the exact actions vary), then Pakistan will fall into chaos. My sentiment is that if that's the case (and I'm not educated enough to know if it is, but I tend to doubt it), then we should let it fall and deal with that problem, rather than limping along.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:10 AM on May 26, 2011

I suspect it's something that the country and its citizens are gonna have wrestle with and fix themselves. America is just going to meddle and get in the way of things, IMO.

Yeah, that is something I would agree with. Unfortunately, I don't see the American establishment or the utterly corrupt Pakistani government allowing American involvement to end. sigh
posted by bardophile at 5:26 AM on May 26, 2011

Otherwise, not terribly familiar with Pakistan

Basic info from a US gov point of view: Pakistan-U.S. Relations: A Summary

A stable, democratic, prosperous Pakistan actively combating religious militancy is considered vital to U.S. interests.

Love the mischievous tweets on the Mr. Destructo site:

"It will only take us 9 years & 4 months & about $4 trillion in international conflicts & intelligence actions, but we'll EVENTUALLY END YOU."

"AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS: 'We Do Not Understand Asymmetric Warfare, Figureheads or Terrorism Recruitment, but We Strung 'im Up!'"

"AP: Bin Laden Corpse Made Out of Pure Diamonds—to Fund Schools, EPA, Medicare and Agency Budgets Slashed to 'War Terrorism's Shit Up'"

"If there's one thing my aunt who died in WTC 1 would've wanted, it'd be for Bin Laden's decade-later death to psych us up for bombing Libya."
posted by nickyskye at 9:10 AM on May 26, 2011

So the great game - demeaned as history above - is in fact very much on. China is the great consumer and the US would like to be the throttle washer on the tap and China is looking to protect its supply lines.

BUT YOU GAVE AWAY THE GREAT GAME!
posted by clavdivs at 9:41 AM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Doesn't the military consume most of the petro?
posted by five fresh fish at 10:24 AM on May 26, 2011

..."they anticipate that the U.S. will not substantially reduce nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan anytime soon."
posted by clavdivs at 10:34 AM on May 26, 2011

Doesn't the military consume most of the petro?

Nah, because in just Uzbekistan alone natural gas reserves are estimated to be around 66.2 trillion cubic feet.

Just as in Iraq with the faux WMD, the invasion of Afghanistan has always been about oil.
posted by nickyskye at 10:50 AM on May 26, 2011

Ayaz Amir wonders in Friday's The News whether Pakistan should take a leaf out of Israel's book.
posted by bardophile at 1:21 AM on May 27, 2011

CIA team to search Bin Laden compound.
posted by OmieWise at 3:57 AM on May 27, 2011

I hope you are all feeling safer over there.
US anti-terror renewal bill raced through Congress and signed with 'auto pen' by Barack Obama from Europe to meet deadline.
posted by adamvasco at 10:16 AM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

Asma Jehangir blasts the Pakistan army. Will try to find a translated transcript, or possibly cobble one together myself.
posted by bardophile at 10:39 AM on May 27, 2011

Signs That Bin Laden Weighed Seeking Pakistani Protection | Clinton brings Pakistan support, "expectations"

I hope you are all feeling safer over there.

> In a matter of just 3 years, we have gone from a Republican president invoking "national security" to criticize Democrat Senators for arguing against the "Patriot" Act, to a Democrat president invoking "national security" to criticize Republican Senators for arguing against the "Patriot" Act.

Asma Jehangir blasts the Pakistan army

Well said Asma! (Enjoyed that, even with my rusty Urdu, thanks bardophile.) A little about her. There are some parts of her marvelous outrage that are very funny, like her use of the old fashioned word duffer or that the parliamentary resolution is, to her, like toilet paper. But the problem is how to transfer the power from the military to civilians, when there is the Afghani mess on Pakistan's West (with the USA funding the military to the tune of billions of bucks) and the taliban and/or other extremists infiltrating Islamabad, the capital of the country?
posted by nickyskye at 10:59 AM on May 27, 2011

OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD SHIRT T-Shirt
posted by clavdivs at 6:44 PM on May 28, 2011

This thread jumped the shark about 3000 comments ago.
posted by Skygazer at 5:26 PM on May 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

Osama bin Laden's death should serve as a warning to all terrorists that they will be brought to justice in the relentless campaign against violent extremism.

something to keep in mind.
posted by clavdivs at 11:36 PM on May 29, 2011

Osama bin Laden tried to establish 'grand coalition' of militant groups.
Al-Qaida leader spent final weeks trying to strengthen links with Afghan and Pakistani insurgent groups in bid to 'stay relevant'
posted by adamvasco at 10:24 AM on May 30, 2011

Osama bin Laden's death should serve as a warning to all terrorists that they will be brought to justice

Possibly within a decade!
posted by EarBucket at 11:08 AM on May 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Skygazer: This thread jumped the shark about 3000 comments ago.

I guess that makes lupus_yonderboy The Fonz of the Bin Laden Thread. I wonder how he feels about that.
posted by Kattullus at 11:34 AM on May 30, 2011

I will be potsy if BB will be ralph.
posted by clavdivs at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2011

Scratching the surface of Abbottabad
posted by Rumple at 9:46 PM on May 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

From Rumple's link just above: Since May 2, Pakistan has been a divided country. The larger part is made up of people who are upset because they believe the whole story about bin Laden's hiding out in Abbottabad is an American lie. The other part is made up of people seething with anger because, even if they don't regret bin Laden's death, they still aren't happy about how this has damaged the reputation of Pakistan's army and its supposedly all-powerful ISI.

There are SO many things wrong with this. 1) The country has been "a divided country" for a long time, now. May 2 has had little effect on the divide. 2) How have they determined that "the larger part" is people who believe all of this is an American lie? 3) There's more than one "other part." There are those who are angry, not because of the damage to the army's reputation but the damage to the country caused by the army and the ISI and the corrupt political leadership.

I really hate it when people overgeneralize in such lazy ways.
posted by bardophile at 11:31 PM on May 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's far more likely that "the larger part of the country" has never even heard that Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad. Many of them will never even have heard of Osama bin Laden at all.
posted by bardophile at 11:35 PM on May 30, 2011

Pakistan has doggedly pursued a single goal: destabilizing India, its powerful neighbor on the subcontinent, as well as Afghanistan, by providing support to Islamist terror groups. The more subtle details of this task have been left to the ISI.

hahahahahaha! Destabilizing India and Afghanistan has been Pakistan's single goal? Even if you just want to look at the military, I would argue that:
1) Trying to maintain some influence in Kashmir, which is internationally disputed territory;
2) Protecting themselves from what they see as the likelihood that India will try to annex; and
3) Staying in the good graces of China and Uncle Sam to the greatest extent possible,

have all been higher priorities.
posted by bardophile at 11:41 PM on May 30, 2011

Bardophile wrote: It's far more likely that "the larger part of the country" has never even heard that Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad. Many of them will never even have heard of Osama bin Laden at all.

Seriously? I would have thought that the people least likely to follow international news would be the ones most interested in him, and would have heard this via other channels.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:49 AM on May 31, 2011

Well you tried Bin Laden, but even you couldn't eclipse Sarah Palin as the largest thread on Metafilter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:43 AM on May 31, 2011

It's not closed yet; come on people, we can do it!
posted by TedW at 5:05 AM on May 31, 2011

the people least likely to follow international news would be the ones most interested in him

Nope. Huge swathes of the Pakistani population bring the term "poor benighted masses" to a whole new level. Urban Pakistanis from the middle and lower middle class is where you will find most of his supporters in Pakistan. That is also where you will find the people most on top of the international news. Urban Pakistanis as a whole make up less than 40% of the population. Last time I looked at the numbers carefully, it was closer to 30%, but I believe the balance has been shifting.
posted by bardophile at 5:06 AM on May 31, 2011

Oh no...
posted by bardophile at 6:27 AM on May 31, 2011

Sorry, for those who don't want to follow the link. Journalist Saleem Shahzad, who has been very critical of the army, and writes extensively about terrorism, the Taliban, the ISI, etc., has gone missing. Apparently some news sources are reporting him dead, but I haven't found that story yet.
posted by bardophile at 6:40 AM on May 31, 2011

Brandon Blatcher: Well you tried Bin Laden, but even you couldn't eclipse Sarah Palin as the largest thread on Metafilter.

Well, Sarah Palin had the advantage of being alive and generating more news, leading to more discussion. It's hard to say something stupid on camera when you're dead.
posted by Kattullus at 7:23 AM on May 31, 2011

Several posts were split off of this one which didn't happen to the Palin thread. We'd be well over if even half the comments in those threads were in this one instead.
posted by Mitheral at 7:51 AM on May 31, 2011

Saleem Shahzad, missing for two days, the writer ofthis piece about the attack on PNS Mehran, has been found dead.
posted by bardophile at 7:58 AM on May 31, 2011

Maybe this was a further reason he was murdered. The book was only published 10 days ago. Pundita also points a finger at the ISI
posted by adamvasco at 8:22 AM on May 31, 2011

Afghan Minister Urges U.S. Caution on Troop Cuts After bin Laden’s Death

wow, from the asia times link.
two United States-made P3-C Orion surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft worth US$36 million each were destroyed before some of the attackers escaped through a cordon of thousands of armed forces.
posted by clavdivs at 8:49 AM on May 31, 2011

Bin Laden raid gets little credence in conspiracy-minded Pakistan.

"Then they'll come in and take control of our nuclear weapons"
posted by clavdivs at 5:50 PM on May 31, 2011

OSAMA RAN
posted by darkstar at 6:24 PM on May 31, 2011 [1 favorite]

BUT COULDN'T HIDE
posted by darkstar at 6:24 PM on May 31, 2011 [1 favorite]

BY SWORD HE LIVED
posted by darkstar at 6:25 PM on May 31, 2011 [1 favorite]

AND SO HE DIED.
posted by darkstar at 6:25 PM on May 31, 2011 [1 favorite]

BURMA SHAVE
posted by darkstar at 6:26 PM on May 31, 2011 [6 favorites]

well, that almost wraps it up...

LOOK WWWWAAAAAYYYY UP!

heres ma kastle
posted by clavdivs at 11:34 PM on May 31, 2011

The thread is done. The issues are not. sigh.
posted by bardophile at 12:38 AM on June 1, 2011

Just 1,066 comments short of besting the Palin thread, alas.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:16 AM on June 1, 2011

Well, as someone said upthread, Palin keeps saying more things to generate more discussion...
posted by bardophile at 1:26 AM on June 1, 2011

How can you give in so easily?
posted by OmieWise at 3:09 AM on June 1, 2011

Hey, you, with only six posts in this thread, who are you accusing of giving in easily?

To be more serious, though, I'm just too heartbroken over Saleem Shahzad's death to do much here right now.
posted by bardophile at 3:14 AM on June 1, 2011

Osama Bin Laden: What really happened? My favorite recent article, written by By Urooj Zia (Cover Feature; Himal Southasian; June 2011).

A few interesting details:

...Given these ridiculous non-arguments one can either assume that elements within Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment like making random prank calls to journalists...

They were carrying bodies and holding some hostages. They destroyed the downed helicopter – the resulting explosion blew out windows in every house in the vicinity. It was huge! Then they left in the other three choppers.’

Many television commentators in the country have since began to refer to the dead terrorist as a ‘Shaheed’ (martyr),

The role of the ISI, meanwhile, has remained murky and sordid. To look at it in simplistic ‘with the US or against the US’ binaries, however, would be a folly. The agency is notorious for being self-serving, and primarily looks after what military analyst Dr Ayesha Siddiqa famously referred to as the ‘milbus’ (military-business complex) in her book, Military, inc. Moreover, the agency continues to see the concept of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan – through ‘assets’ such as Al-Qaeda – to be an important part of Pakistan’s security and foreign policy. ...That the myopic strategy of ‘strategic depth’ has, to date, done little else other than wreck havoc in both, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is, however, a fact that Pakistan’s establishment is yet to come to terms with.

During discussions with Himal Southasian, bin Laden’s former neighbours repeatedly described the neighbourhood as an ‘extremely high-security area’. ‘This is part of the Cantonment, and Army personnel constantly patrol the streets, while snipers maintain lookouts,’ residents said on the condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety. ‘It is impossible that the Army and intelligence agencies did not know who was living in that house.’

...in cantonments, only the Army owns land. It is then leased to people for specific periods of time. ‘No land transaction here – including leasing of houses – is done without the supervision of the Army,’

The Major did not wish to be named because, like everyone else who spoke to us on the issue, he feared for his safety as well.

Himal Southasian‘s own investigations have shown, meanwhile, that sections of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment had played a clear role in harbouring Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaeda and various Taliban factions have announced that Pakistan’s leadership and its people have become their primary targets – the US has been delegated to the ‘second’ position in the list.
posted by nickyskye at 6:19 AM on June 1, 2011

One of the things that has pissed me off royally about the idiotic gung ho-ism that took place after the announcement of OBL's death was the blind idolizing of the US government, believing every word of the story, that the holes in the story, the incredible discrepancies, the outright fabrications like a 40 minute gunfight or that OBL used his wife as a shield, the conflicting details were not examined with considered thought.

It's not that OBL was a good guy and that's why he deserved the doubt. It was that there were reality based reasons to doubt the story or to consider the details with closer inspection. Ever since the nightmare of the Bushocracy it has been unpatriotic to ask questions, to express suspicion, to express reservations or caution. It's been either For Us Or Against Us simplemindedness and I think that is not only lunacy but profoundly stupid. It has made WikiLeaks an essential ingredient in comprehending the world's politics, which says a lot about the trustworthiness of the world's governments and either the mainstream media's or general public's inability to probe stories with any depth.

I'm grateful for next part to the essay being out today: The Real Story Sucks: Bin Laden, the ISI and a Dawood Sandstorm It's excellent, brilliantly scathing, sharp and very funny! Packed full of choice nuggets of info, snark and insight.

The story of Bin Laden's death suffers substantially if we needed ten years, three wars and a Navy SEAL hit team to kill Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. They burned themselves with that little ditty.

By day two, the story began falling apart like a swing-dancing leper.

If you are the sort of person who still subscribes to the notion that the CIA is capable of doing anything other than "fucking up" with excellence, then this kind of hideout is like building your new Hutaree Militia compound on a children's soccer field in Langley, Virginia.

Which, again — forgive my paranoid cynicism — strikes me as odd. Maybe, as the U.S. said, al-Kuwaiti fired upon them, and they had no choice but to shoot him. But the moment they did, they lost a potentially devastating source of intelligence, a man who could've identified everyone in touch with Bin Laden since 9/11, identify whomever gave him the money and idea to buy that house in the first place, instructed him on whom to see and consult with about any problems Bin Laden had in the city. Who else did courier al-Kuwaiti meet in his travels? Whom did the U.S. watch him meeting? In that sense, maybe it was even more important al-Kuwaiti die in that raid than even Bin Laden. He knew way too much for his own rotten good, and why he was not captured should be considered a great mystery.

For anyone to say such an ISI-negotiated deal for Bin Laden’s sanctuary is unprecedented, well, read your fucking history.

As ex-ISI head General Assad Durrani argued:
It is more likely that [Pakistan] did know [about the raid]. It is not conceivable that it was done without the involvement of Pakistani security forces at some stage. They were involved and they were told they were in position… The army chief was in his office, the cordons had been thrown around that particular place. The Pakistani helicopters were also in the air so that indicates that it was involved.

There is no middle ground for someone who could publicly expose the American-Pakistani alliance as a deeply cynical game of triple crosses, in which a rogue, nuclear-armed state employs an enormous gang of summertime killers, paid for with checks drawn off the U.S. Treasury. The Pakistanis gave up Bin Laden to America, for reasons that won't become clear for decades.
posted by nickyskye at 8:27 AM on June 1, 2011

I was fooled into treating children who lived with Bin Laden, says doctor.
posted by clavdivs at 8:50 AM on June 1, 2011

Cross posted from Syed Daleem Shazad thread.
State Minister for External Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has said that relations between the two spy agencies of Pakistan and US have returned to normal.
Earlier last month Declan Walsh asked: Whose side is Pakistan's ISI really on?
Eurasia Review : US-Pak Counter-Terrorism Cooperation: The Ritual And The Reality – Analysis
See also Inside Pakistan's spy network - Anatol Lieven
The ISI's growth from a British-model intelligence organisation to a "state within a state" was the result of three processes, The first was the conflict with India, The second was fear of internal revolt in Pakistan, The third factor was the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan.
BCCI was the financial vehicle for the ISI and the rabbit hole goes deeper.
posted by adamvasco at 9:42 AM on June 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

One of the things that has pissed me off royally about the idiotic gung ho-ism that took place after the announcement of OBL's death was the blind idolizing of the US government, believing every word of the story

One of things that pissed me off about the idiotic keyboard theorizing that took place after the announcement of Bin Laden's death was the blind idolizing of every lunatic internet conspiracist, every half-baked opinion, and any foreign report, however incredible, as long as it suggested that the "official story" was an intentionally perpetrated lie. Wasn't Bin Laden, wasn't dead, wasn't guilty, never was a Bin Laden, anything, anything, was more credible than the "official story." Given some of the shit you've asked us to take as gospel over the last month, nickyskye, you win the lifetime chutzpah award for chiding the rest of us for being too credulous.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:53 AM on June 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

Bin Laden getting killed, nuclear disasters, and end of the world prophecies. No, the only thing that is going to to beat out the announcement of that crazed lunatic as a candidate for a top office is....the same thing, again.
posted by cashman at 12:52 PM on June 1, 2011

Council on Foreign Relations (Micah Zenko's blog): Bin Laden's Death: One Month Later

Thomas Friedman: The Bin Laden Decade

Rolling Stone: Michael Hastings, My Decade of Bin Laden
posted by zarq at 12:54 PM on June 1, 2011

In the future, a designated news photographer — using a heavily muffled camera — will be present in the room to record televised presidential addresses like President Obama’s announcement on May 1 that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
...
Controversy followed the Bin Laden announcement after it became widely understood that Mr. Obama had returned to the lectern to pose for news photographers — who were barred from the real speech — as if he were making the announcement. The New York Times used a photo of this re-enactment on Page 1, as did other newspapers. (“Whose Eye? What Beholder?” Lens, May 25.)

posted by zarq at 12:56 PM on June 1, 2011

Given some of the shit you've asked us to take as gospel over the last month, nickyskye, you win the lifetime chutzpah award for chiding the rest of us for being too credulous.

lol, like she cares.

Monster Mash: Navy SEAL museum sees increase in attendance; Kansas axes state funding of arts.

figures.

I believe BCCI was a way point/ laundering service for funds going to the Muj
and more.
posted by clavdivs at 1:40 PM on June 1, 2011

In the future, a designated news photographer — using a heavily muffled camera — will be present in the room to record televised presidential addresses like President Obama’s announcement on May 1 that Osama bin Laden had been killed.

That seems so pointless. The main reason photographers weren't allowed in there is because the camera shutters make noise and flash which would interfere with the TV broadcast. The main reason that pro photographers use shutter-based still cameras is that digital video imagery, even at HD resolution, is generally inferior to that available in a still shot, and thus won't look that good when printed in a newspaper or magazine. You can get super-high quality imagery from video, but only by trading off price and/or size of the camera.

This is only a temporary state of affairs, though. Shutters and flash assistance are becoming increasingly irrelevant as photosensor technology improves, and the still/video quality gap is rapidly narrowing. The discussion of how the live/posed imagery came from two different events is a much more telling demonstration of the difference between an open and a closed society; in the latter, such details are systematically suppressed, and having a public conversation about them would be considered subversive.
posted by anigbrowl at 2:41 PM on June 1, 2011

Lately I've just been reading the updates to this thread, instead of commenting, so as to keep my blood pressure down. Bardophile, I especially appreciate your thoughtful comments, which have provided much insight.

I also have this game I play: scroll down the comments and guess, simply by the links and the content, which ones are nickyskye's. So far, I'm batting 1000.
posted by misha at 2:44 PM on June 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wasn't Bin Laden, wasn't dead, wasn't guilty, never was a Bin Laden, anything, anything, was more credible than the "official story."

Just sticking up for myself a little here, setting the record straight. Actually, what you've said is 100% lies. I've never once said anything remotely like OBL "wasn't dead, wasn't guilty, never was a Bin Laden", never asked anybody to take anything as "gospel", ever.

Abject, blind belief in the US - or any- government may be your thing, not mine, and I will not be bullied by anybody into silence, not thinking, not questioning, when questions seem worthwhile.

And besides, the YEEEHA what a lovely extrajudicial assassination crap was so Ugly American. Then there is ignorance, with people thinking sheeple stuff like "The main reason the U.S. got in Afghanistan and Iraq was Osama Bin Laden." Not true at all. People actually believe that official bs.

After many compliments and thanks for links, tons of favorites, after a day or two the holes and procedural inconsistencies in this official story started to add up in an astonishing quantity.

Like the author of the The Real Story Sucks: Bin Laden, the ISI and a Dawood Sandstorm article, I wondered what chip was cashed in when OBL bit the dust? The collusion between the US government and either the corrupt Pakistani military or ISI seemed transparently obvious.

Oh no, no wondering allowed here. No curiosity, no doubts allowed, no speculating. Just blind belief in the official story. Blind faith in Obama. Not for me.

I said the the United States had been corrupt in investing many billions in arming Afghanistan and Pakistan, including arming Pakistan with nukes, CIA heroin biz, agenda to do Big Oil biz using Afghanistan and Pakistan. Oops, party pooper.

The official story, in case you hadn't noticed is full of holes from end to end but what's worse was that looking at the bigger picture was ridiculed.

A link to a single site wasn't liked. Nevermind that the content was worthwhile. My questioning the official story was simply not welcome amid the rah rah worshiping and bloodlust. My attitude to that is tough luck. I'm going to keep questioning, being curious, reading up on the situation and keep my mind open to learning.
posted by nickyskye at 7:07 PM on June 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

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